The Nerd Brigade
by Morgenstern128
Summary: Clary Morgenstern and Simon Lewis. The brain. Best friends. Sebastian Morgenstern and Alec Lightwood. The brawn. Over protective brothers. Isabel Lightwood and Jace Herondale. The beauty. Adoptive siblings. Magnus Bane. Freewheeling Bisexual. Glitter obsessed. But they are all so much more than the stereotypes. They are members of the Nerd Brigade, an elite group of heroes.
1. Team Building

**_Hi everyone! You might have read my other stories, The New Girl, or One Drop Is All It Takes, so you might know my style, but if you haven't, I basically try to publish once a week, but it sometimes takes longer, so don't ask me to update if I am over the week mark. Thanks. Also, this story is a new idea that I had, and I really haven't seen one like it on Fanfiction before, so please leave a review and tell me how you like it, it would mean a lot. Alright, now, onto the story! Enjoy!_**

 **Clary:**

I am not going to lie, when Simon proposed this idea to me, the idea of using out genius level IQ's to do some good, the idea of creating a team to help us, I was skeptical. Very skeptical.

But being a genius, it was in my blood. It was in my DNA to look at this from all the angles, and consider all of the ramifications.

Sure, we would do plenty of good with our brains, seeing as I was an all-around genius in every category, specializing in phycology, and Simon was a numbers person, with perfect recall, but it would also mean having to use our body's actively, which was not our forte in the slightest, and it would mean having to work with a team of people.

People. Not our strong suit either. Our social stamina was even worse than our running stamina. _But,_ if we were to make a team of specialized people, then we could do so much more than consulting, which was what the two of us did now out of our nerdy New York City loft.

Simon finally sold me on the idea though, in three ways. 1.) He made me watch a few episodes of Scorpion, a show with a team of genius's just like us, and I saw how much good we could really do. 2.) He pointed out that we could travel anywhere and have access to any equipment because I had a trust fund bigger than Russia, and he had a father who was a congressman. 3.) He convinced me that I would finally be able to start checking things off of my super long bucket list by doing these weird jobs.

With all of those very convincing reasons and more than a few puppy dog faces, he finally got me to agree to at least interview a few potential candidates.

I did get in a few requirements though. For one, we would name the group The Nerd Brigade, because nerds formed it. Also, there were no leaders, we would be a democracy, but down it came to voting, if we ended up with an even number, we were the deciding votes.

So here I was, sitting on top of our vintage Pac Man machine with a clipboard full of loose leaf, taking down notes on each potential candidate for our team. Simon and I were being super picky, because this team could have lives in its hands, and we needed certain people for that.

"Hi, I saw your add on my kitchen counter, and I was interested in the position as the second Morgenstern," a voice said. I looked up and squealed, jumping into Seb's arms.

"Your back!" I said ecstatic that Seb was finally back from college. If this was a play, this was the part that would say: Enter Sebastian Morgenstern, Clarissa's over protective brother, back from college.

I loved him though, which was unusual for siblings, but who cares.

"Yeah, I'm back, and I want in little sis," he said, laughing and putting me down.

"Done. Simon! We have team member one!" I shouted to him before racing over to the huge, clear dry erase board in the corner, flipping it over to a clean side and then adding four category headings.

Brains:

Brawns:

Beauty:

Other:

Then, I filled in the brains category with Simon and I's names, and put Seb's name under the brawn category, filling one of the spots. We had decided no more than seven members, so two in each category, and one in other, and we would be set.

Three down, four to go.

"Sweet. We have another candidate coming in now!" he called back before we took up our positions on the old Pac Man machine (me) and the old Galaga machine (Simon), while Jon went to grab food from our kitchen.

"Hi, I'm Isabel Lightwood, and this is my brother Alec. We are both interested in joining this team," the tall, raven haired, ravishing girl said. When the even taller, ever darker haired, blue eyes boy didn't say anything, Isabel nudged him and he said a hello to us.

Simon motioned for them to sit down on the couch while I did a quick once over of them, using my phycology training to figure out what I would have to say to them.

"Hey guys, I'm Clary and this is Simon," I said, introducing us to them. "Before we start with the interview, are there any questions either of you have?" I asked them, as Simon took over the note taking.

"I have one. Are there any members of the team yet?" Alec asked. Aha. So he was the more serious one I could tell. Don't ask how. Genius.

"Yes, Clary's older brother is on the team for brawn," Simon explained, pointing at the whiteboard. "And he was in the military for a while before he was honorably discharged for getting minorly hurt in the line of duty. He's twenty-two, meaning he can also buy certain things for us that we cannot get for ourselves," Simon continued, explaining that Seb was not only on the team because he was my brother.

Alec nodded, satisfied. Izzy had a question though too. "How old are you guys? I am seventeen, and Alec is eighteen, by the way," she asked us. Perfectly reasonable.

"We are both also seventeen," I answered. Then we began interviewing them, seeing if they would be a good fit. And they totally were.

Izzy would be beauty, and Alec would be brawn, we decided. We were sold before we even got to the important part of the interview. The abilities.

We lived in a work where abilities were rare, but not unheard of, and most people could do something special.

For example. I was a genius, but that was just luck of birth. I was also immune to temperature and pain, and I could do some basic mind over matter stuff, like amateur telekinesis. And Simon was a sort of technopath, along with being a genius, so he could hack and do interesting things with an iPhone.

We really wanted Alec and Izzy on the team, but we needed abilities on the team.

Izzy went first, confident in her skills. It turns out that she had super speed, which was awesome, because the amount of things that would allow the team to do was too large to calculate, even for Simon.

Alec's was invaluable too, as he was telepathic. But his abilities were super strong, allowing him to do a group telepathic link, like a group chat in our heads. And he could keep it up with all potential seven of us for at least an hour, he told us.

Bam. Just like that, the two of them were on our team. Now, our brawns column was full, and the brains column was full, and the beauty column was half full, leaving only one beauty and one other to be filled. Not that those in beauty or brawn or brain had to be only that, as I explained to the bad ass Isabel.

Our loft was huge, thanks to my even bigger trust fund, so we had plenty of bedrooms. Six in all actually. So Izzy got her own room, and so did Alec. Simon had his room, and Seb and I had the one we had always shared. Everyone would get a room, seeing as we had already decided that this would be our base.

"Another one coming in Clary!" Simon shouted from the Galaga machine. I took my place on my video game as a super tall, gorgeous, angel like, all golden boy walked through the door.

"Oh, that's Jace. I almost forgot about him! He is our adoptive brother, and he wants to be a part of the team too," Izzy called from her room. I laughed. I had barely known her for an hour, but we were already good friends and it seemed just like her to forget about a person.

"Yeah. I'm Jace," the boy said. I itched to draw him, because he was literally all golden. Gold hair, gold eyes, tanned skin. Golden.

We interviewed him, and he was perfect for the team. I expected as much though, seeing as he was the sibling of Alec and Izzy. He was arrogant and sarcastic, but where that was usually annoying as hell, it suited him well.

His abilities cemented him place on the team though. He was a warrior. It was super rare in the world, maybe ten of them in a country, but they were amazing. Fierce fighters, loyal people. But as a fighter damn. They preferred swords and knives usually, as he confirmed, and they were like ninjas. He was like a ninja.

Bam. Only one spot left now. It was a big debate, but we put him in the beauty category, I mean he was gorgeous.

So now we just had the other spot to fill up.

We had spent the few hours after Jace arrived settling him into his room, and filling everyone in on some important details about the team, like that we had all the money we needed. We would wait until we filled the team up before we went over all the details.

"Last candidate of the day Clary!" Simon called. We took our positions and as we waited he asked me, "So what does other look like eitherway?"

Then the candidate walked in. "That is what other looks like," I told him, as a very glittery, asian man walked in the door. He was wearing clothes that were all covered in glitter, and looked very vintage bohemian. He was very other.

"Simon," Simon said, pointing to himself.

"Clary," I said, pointing to myself.

"Sheldon," the boy said pointing to Simon, "Biscuit," he said, pointing to me. "Magnus Bane, the Magnificent," he said, pointing to himself.

"You're in!" Simon and I both shouted at once. Magnus grinned. "But show us your abilities just because," I added.

"Of course," he said, like it was expected.

Magnus was a warlock, it turned out, meaning he could do things like summon demons (hopefully we would never need that) and he could make things appear, like stealing from his mind. It was awesome.

Bam. Other. Team filled. The Nerd Brigade was a reality.

What a day.

 ** _I know it was kind of short, but whatever. Hope you loved it, if you did review, if you didn't, still review, and tell me why. Thanks! Till next time! Bye!_**


	2. The Institute

_**Hi everyone! It's 2:35 A.M. here, what time is it where you are? I'm honestly just curious, because I have never been to a different timezone. This chapter is going to start in Clary's point of view, and then change, so the first insight into another character's thoughts will be provided. Either way, drop a review! Enjoy!**_

 **Clary:**

I had to go to the bathroom after Magnus went to set up his room (which would no doubt be covered in multicolored glitter), so I tasked Seb with gathering all of the new team members so Simon and I could give them all of the details on this team and the operation we run here.

"Alright everyone. This is Magnus Bane the Magnificent, our final team member!" I introduced him by the title he had introduced himself to us with, to everyone else who was gathered on our couch.

"Hello darlings. Hello blue eyes," Magnus announced, from his seat next to Izzy (the two of them had become even faster friends than Izzy and I) being as extra as he was, and winking at Alec, who began to blush furiously while staring at the ground to try to hide it. But we could still see the coloring of the tips of his ears.

"Don't get any of that glitter near me Magnus," Jace told the boy, while looking at Magnus with a suspiciously raised eyebrow.

"Oh don't worry. It's glued on," Magnus said, smiling happily, not bothered by Jace's comment in the slightest.

"So. Does this group do espionage?" Izzy asked, raising her hand like we were still in school.

"Like a bi spy," Magnus added, snickering with Isabel, foregoing the raised hand.

"Or lesbianage," Izzy said, giggling, even though I was very sure she was not gay. Not that I would have cared one way or the other. She just seemed too… boy crazed. But I might just be overthinking things like I usually do.

"Or a secret gaygent," Alec added on, surprising us all. Huh, I guess that answers that question.

"No, no, and no. We do not do any spy work. We leave that to the government, that was made very clear by Simon's father. We do more… specialized projects. Ones more directed towards our special skills," I said, not really sure how to describe us, considering we hadn't had any jobs yet to go off of.

"Okay. So you all have questions, if you didn't you're insane, and I don't want to hear all of them, so I am going to tell you what we know right now. No interruptions," I told them, using my scary calm angry voice, hoping it would shit even Jace up for the time I needed.

"1.) We are called The Nerd Brigade, not up for debate, or discussion. 2.) This is a democracy. 3.) You will all stay here, because it is base of operations. 4.) The only way off this team is by choice, so if you are serious about this then you can get rid of your current housing. 5.) We are a team. If you disrespect that, you are going to hate your time here. 6.) We are under contract from the U.S. government. We get our jobs through them. 7.) We get paid for these jobs, and the pay is equally split. No money goes back towards the team. Ant questions?" I finished.

Everyone raised their hands into the air. Simon called on Izzy first. Looks like someone has a crush.

"How much will we get for each job?" she asked him.

"Varies. Next question," he opened the floor up again. Our social stamina was running out, and fast, so it was a good thing that there was only one more question. From Jace.

"Why does no money come back to the team itself?" he asked. I had known someone would ask that eventually.

I pulled out a remote, and pulled down a white sheet. Then I projected my trust fund balance onto the screen. 9,345,675,239,874,225. Everyone stared confused.

"Is that a code or something?" Magnus asked.

Simon answered for me. "That everyone, is Clary's trust fund."

Complete and utter silence reigned. I expected that. There was literally not even an amount for how big it is. My father shouldn't have even been able to have that much money, but the funny thing was, my trust fund was like an eighth of his balance.

"H-how?" Alec asked, finally voicing everyone's thoughts, being the first one to crack through their group shell shocking.

"A guilty father who thinks money can buy forgiveness. It can't. But it can buy our team anything it wants." I said in a clipped tone.

Everyone nodded, understanding how touchy the subject was for me. Only Simon and Seb really knew though. My father had left Seb, my mother, and I alone because I was too different, and he didn't want to deal with me.

So years later, when he came around again, and told me how sorry he was, and that he wanted to make up for it, leaving me this account, I didn't touch it. Not until now.

Jon got out of his paralysis in time to whine. "Why is your trust fund so much bigger than mine?" he pouted.

"Ummm… because our deadbeat dad offered to take you with him, and you declined. I didn't get that choice," I told him like it was obvious. I was laughing too though. It seemed just like Seb to get annoyed by that.

Magnus raised his hand, the final question. I nodded to him. "Are you and Simon bipolar?" he asked, shocking me.

"No! Why would you think that?" I spluttered out.

He shrugged innocently. "I mean, you were super nice and normal earlier, and now you seem angry and are getting annoyed easily," he explained.

"We are not bipolar. We're genius'. We are at home around numbers and facts, and logic. People are illogical, meaning it takes a toll on us to spend a lot of time near you all. We try our best though, and that is why if we get snappy, don't avoid us, just realize why," I said to them, trying my best to sound warm, but still sounding cold and calculating.

Magnus and the others nodded, showing that they understood. I dismissed them, and Magnus and Izzy fled to their rooms, I'm sure to glitterize them together. And Alec went to explore the huge loft, which included a situation room, an art room for me, a whiteboard room for Simon, a lounge room, and a training room for our yoga and tai chi, along with Seb and I's learning of Krav Maga (the only exercise I did), along with the bedrooms, main room, and kitchen, and the bathrooms attached to each room.

And Simon and I's special gaming room that was not on any floor plans, and required a fingerprint scanner from inside my room to access it. But no one would be able to find that one on their tour. Not even Seb knew about it.

That left only Seb, Simon, Jace, and I. I don't know why Jace was still hanging around, but it seemed like he was deep in thought.

"Why would your father be guilty?" he finally asked. I paled a little, not wanting to relive the events that caused me to almost kill myself. Yes. Events. He had not only left me, but before that, he had abused me. Verbally, emotionally, and physically.

"Not your concern," Seb growled out before I could answer. By the Angel was I glad that my brother was overprotective.

I let out a shaky breath and then called out to Simon from behind my back as I walked away. "Institute!" I told him, our code name for the game room. I heard footsteps following me as I left the room.

 **Jace:**

That was so weird. Clary had a guilty father who left and tried to take Seb with him. Seb turned murderous when I brought it up. And then, Clary looked like she was having a panic attack and she told Simon to come with her to the "Institute."

I walked through the nerdy loft, covered in comic book and manga stuff. I mulled these things over in my head as I marveled at how huge their place was. My place too now I guess.

I saw Alec down the hall in the training room, checking out the equipment. I raced down to him, wanting to ask him something.

"Jace, this equipment is awesome!" he exclaimed upon seeing me behind him.

"Yeah, yeah. You've explored the whole loft right, so is there a room called the "Institute"? I asked him.

He looked confused for a while, thinking over an answer. "No. There's a ton of other stuff though," he answered me finally.

Now I was even more confused. I decided to retrace Simon and Clary's steps, determined to figure out what the hell was going on here.

I returned back to the main room where we had all congregated. Then I followed the same steps they had. It led me to the largest room at the end of the hall, Clary's and Seb's. Huh.

I knocked on a door and a Seb's voice told me to come in. I opened the door to see him staring at a picture on the wall.

"Hey. Have you seen Clary or Simon?" I asked him, all the while wondering what he was doing.

"No. That's the thing. I've heard them do that Insitute thing before. But I checked the floor plan. There is no room called that on it. So I followed them here. And when I walked in this painting was sliding back into place. I pulled it off the wall and there is a black panel," he told me, pulling the painting down to show me the panel.

"That is no panel. That's a biometric scanner," I tell him, my eyes going wide for a moment. Then it dawns on me. They are both genius's, so building that themselves wouldn't have even been hard at all.

Seb's eyes widened too. "Do you think my hand print would do it? We are family after all," he asked me. I shrugged.

"Worth a shot," I told him.

Seb nodded and pressed his hand against the panel. A few seconds later the wall slid away and a door with Institute written on it showed up. I pushed it open and we stepped into the dark room.

"Did I do that?" Seb asked me.

The lights came on. "No. We did. We've been watching you outside that door for the better portion of an hour," Simon said, him and Clary attempting to hide their laughter. And failing.

"Oh. Right. What is this place?" I asked him. Clary came out from behind him.

"Welcome to the Institute. I suppose you know our secret now. We build ourselves a gaming room to hide away in. Which is why you didn't know about it Seb. Genius's only. Sorry," she told us.

Interesting. A secret room to hide away in that only Clary or Simon could get into. I could deal with that.

"Whatever," Seb said, voicing my thoughts, and we walked out just in time to hear an alarm go off for a few seconds.

Clary and Simon brush past us, shutting the door to the institute firm behind them.

"What's that?" I ask, because Seb was joining them, so only I seemed to be lost.

"The alarm for a facetime request from the big house," Seb answered for them.

When we got to the main room everyone was already there, and they were all looking around in confusion as a television lowered down from the ceiling with a facetime request on it.

Clary hit accept on a remote and a face popped up. A face we all recognized. The face of the governor of New York, and Simon's dad.

"Hello Mr. Lewis. Why can we do for you?" Clary asked the man, going all business mode. The mood in the room had changed, becoming alive with excitement. Our first job.

"There is a package we need your specialized team to go get. No one else can do it but you Clary. We need your damaged nerves for this, and your numbing to pain for this. I will send you the coordinates now. Good luck," the man finished before ending the call.

"I know I've said it before, but you father is cold blooded," Clary said to Simon, who laughed.

"Basically," he replied, laughing with her.

Her phone dinged with a message. "The coordinates are in. Looks like we're flying north. Wheels up in twenty for Greenland. Pack light and warm. Meet us at the airfield I'm sending your directions to," Clary told us before clapping her hands and leaving the room.

This was going to be fun.

 _ **Hope you all liked that chapter! Please leave a review, good or bad, or in between. Till next time! Bye!**_


	3. Killer Frost

_**I'll keep it short this time. I realized that I have never done a disclaimer, so here it is. The Mortal Instruments, and any of the character's, all belong to Cassie Clare, not me. Also, any references to Scorpion the tv show, and there will be a bunch, don't belong to me, because I don't know who created that show, but it wasn't me. Enjoy!**_

When everyone finally arrived at the private runway that I had given the team directions to, I told them what I knew about the mission so far, most of it gleaned off of the very tiny file that Simon's father had sent to me. (Plus more than a little google searching with Simon's technopathic ability.)

"Alright guys! And girl's," I nodded to Izzy. "Here is what we know about our mission. It;s not much sadly, because most of what we do here is need to know only government run operations, and even though we are the ones running headlong into danger, we have not qualified as need to know," I told them, my voice rising as I began due to the complete unfairness of this whole situation.

"So here's what they have deemed to tell us. We are going to a private organizations blacksite in the Arctic Circle to recover a piece of specialized equipment, probably a weapon, that is being held there. Apparently there are two pieces of gear, so if we successfully recover them, we get the agreed upon 20,000 dollars, along with one of the pieces of gear. Any questions?" I asked, finishing with my explanation of the mission. No one raised their hands, which kind of surprised me, not going to lie here.

I suppose that they were all just nervous, even Seb. They didn't all have the advantage of being a practically emotionless robot like Simon and I after all.

Although I wasn't so sure that having close to no emotions was an advantage. Just another reason that Simon was right to bring the normal (kind of) people to help the two of us navigate the social cues that we would undoubtedly encounter on these missions. By the Angel, I kept saying mission. Maybe we were like spy's after all.

Kind of cool, even by my standards.

Simon brought me out of my thoughts by clapping his hands together and ushering everyone into my jet. Money did have it's perks. I couldn't help but think about how me and Simon were totally the leaders here, even though we didn't want leaders. But hey, all great democracies had a leader or two.

Simon then left to join the others on the jet after shooting me a concerned look.

I waited a few more moments longer, trying to get my inner fears under control. I had my fair share of demons, and they had become close friends of mine, but I could not, would not, let them mess with me during a mission. Getting myself hurt was one thing, but here I was leading six other people into danger. My friends. My family. My responsibility. And my fault if someone got hurt.

I took a shaky breath and put my hands on my temples, a position that had always calmed me down when my mind began to over process things.

"Clary? Are you okay?" A voice said behind me, making me spin around.

"Don't sneak up on someone like that Jace," I said to the man standing in front of me.

"You don't seem very scared," he observed of my calm demeanor, the opposite of someone who was just snuck up on. I shrugged. I wasn't the type to get startled easily.

"But seriously, are you alright?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned. It was nice for someone who wasn't Simon or Seb to be caring to me.

"I'm fine Jace, thanks though," I replied to him, shoving my demons far, far down into my heart.

"But aren't you cold? It's freezing out here," he asked me, pulling his coat tighter to demonstrate the low temperatures.

I was confused for a moment before I remembered that COngressman Lewis had only said that my nerves were damaged, not that I couldn't feel temperature or pain at all. I decided that I was going to keep it that way until he needed to know about my messed up nerves.

"Yeah, I was just going to head in," I told him. Jace nodded and walked to the jet's door, me following right behind me.

Walking in I gave Simon a small nod, letting him know that I was fine. Or kind of fine I suppose. But I nodded to let him know that I would be okay. Yeah, that was more accurate.

 **Time Jump: 14 hours later**

 **Sebastian:**

I walked down the wide aisle of the jet to the small room in the rear where Clary stayed. It was made for long plane rides like the one we had just landed from, so Clary didn't have to waste her limited social stamina before we even got to where we were heading.

Thankfully Simon was slightly more socially adept. I mean, considering his mother was an alcoholic, his father was always gone, and Clary was his best friend I had basically been his older brother too, and I could not handle two siblings who couldn't stand being around people for more than ten minutes at a time.

That would be catastrophic.

When I opened the door to the room I walked in on what might have been the strangest thing I had ever walked in on her doing, and that was truly saying something.

Clary was laying in a tub of pure ice water reading an advanced psychology book upside down.

When she saw me she rose out of the tub, fully clothed.

I reached out to touch her skin and it was ice cold. I pulled my hand back and she was crying. My finger was blue from that one little touch. She must have been in there the whole time we were on the plane. By the Angel.

" Clary... by the Angel. You don't have powers... how did this happen. You should be dead," I said to her, frantically wrapping blankets around her.

"My nerves. It's why I'm immune to pain. Mother blamed me for dad leaving, you know that, so when she was " home schooling" me she would electrocute me over and over and over until my nerves fried. She really messed me up. But no one else can know that I don't have powers. Only Simon knows," she said to me. I nodded, anger racing through my veins. I was kind of glad that Mom was dead now, as messed up as it was.

"I won't tell. But why freeze yourself?" I asked her, still trying to warm her up.

"It's my power, my man made one. Your finger is numb and blue from a little touch, and it will stay like that, at least for a few hours. I can kill with this if I touch someone's chest, if it comes to it," she explained. I was kind of scared for her mental health now, but if it made her safer than we were fine.

"Why aren't you warming up Clary?" I asked worrying about her health.

"Because I can make my skin freeze and my core temperature drop with no consequences, but I'm also impervious to heat, so my temperature will stay this cold for a day at least," she explained, stripping to her sports bra and underwear before putting on dry clothes.

"This whole thing is messed up Clary. Why do you need to become Killer Frost for a recovery mission?" I asked, feeling that she was keeping something from me and the team.

"I just did some digging in the dark web with Simon and this place we are going to, it's a mercenary stronghold. The object is open for anyone to take, if they can get it that it is. But, if we fail, to keep their secret they will kill us all. I want to be able to help defend us if it comes down to that," she told me. There was the emotion. It was nice to see. Very nice. Even if it only came out of a life-threatening situation.

"Let's go say hi to some mercenaries then. We landed." She took my hand, or was about to before she remembered that she would freeze it. She smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry," she said while walking out.

I shook my head while smiling to myself. I had missed this. I had missed her.

 **Izzy:**

When Clary told us what she had found out about the place we were going to I was completely shocked.

Then a plan formed in my head. If bad stuff started going down then I would be able to speed everyone away, hopefully before everyone was hurt, and hopefully before everyone was killed.

So now, as we stood in front of a giant, -140 degrees Farenheit pool of water with the objective sitting at the bottom, our odds of failure and having to escape looked pretty good. I was prepared to run like the wind.

 **Clary:**

When we had arrived at the compound, I was completely and utterly flabbergasted by its size and fortitude. And then, when they had taken us inside to where the giant freezing-cold pool was a pit formed in my stomach. Because of how cold the pool was no one could get down it, that was why everyone ended up being killed who came here. Even the thickest and best made wetsuits could only hold under that water for about five seconds tops. To get the case that was at the bottom of the pool though, you would have to be able to be down there for at least two minutes.

Which meant that in the I could do it. But it also meant that my powers, or the powers I had acquired, would have to be given up. And it meant the Jace would know I was lying to him, because there was no way he could have forgotten our conversation from earlier that quickly.

Sucks to be me right now.

I sent Alec forward to talk to the man, and also to read his mind to figure out what these people were not telling us about the pool, because by reading them, I could tell that there was something that they were not telling us.

"Okay here's what I found out. They have found large amounts of radiation within the water, making them suspect that the weapon at the bottom, because it is a weapon, has some sort of chemical compound in it that is made for chemical warfare." Alec told us coming back from talking to the lead scientist.

I first turned to Simon and gave him a meaningful look. He nodded. Then I turn to the whole team that was congregated in front of us and I began to speak, "I'll do it. I'll go down and recover the case. Only I can. And this has to be done," I told them. Immediately Jace was telling me no. That I couldn't. He was being fierce and protective in his argument, and it was super nice that he cared that much for me. Maybe he was kind of falling for me, just like I was kind of falling for him. Time would tell.

After a few minutes of listening to their groups congregated arguments I held my hand up and finality. They weren't going to be able to stop me from doing this, so these arguments were only wasting time, and making the scientist suspicious.

"I'm doing it, and that's final." They all shut up than, probably already mourning my death.

I had just finished stripping down to my sports bra and underwear for the second time today before the scientists came over with a frenzied look on his face. "Miss. You will surely die if you go in like that. Maybe you should let one of the men go instead," he suggested. Ugh. I hated these sexist pigs.

"Thank you for trying to undermine my self-esteem, but I'm going to do it either way," I told the man. He just sneered at me, probably thinking that this stupid girl was going to be dead within a minute. Probably relishing that though. Too bad for him.

I walked over to the side of the pool, and taking a deep breath jumped in. If this was a normal story I would now say that the water hit me like an ice cold wall, but this isn't a normal story. I didn't feel anything. It felt like I was walking on land, the air all around me instead of water. I quickly kicked my legs down to the bottom of the pool and took the case from the ground. Then bracing myself off of the floor of the pool I pushed back up to the surface and broke gasping for breath. Just because the water doesn't affect me doesn't mean I can breathe under it.

Everyone was staring at me open mouthed. I guess they really didn't expect me to live. I wasn't aware that I looked like the martyr type. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing though.

I swing the case up onto the ground and quickly put my clothes back on, not wanting that creepy scientist to see me in my undergarments for any longer.

Wonderful. Now I had to explain how I had done that. So much fun for me. Ugh, I hate people.

 **Till next time! Bye!**


	4. Boxer

_**I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving, or a good week if you don't celebrate, and I hope you are all having a great holiday season, no matter what you celebrate! I did this with my other TMI story, because I am honestly really curious to see if people actually read the author's notes. I know I am guilty of skipping over them sometimes, so I kind of hope that I am not the only one, because that would be embarrassing. Here's the question. What are the three things I always say in either my beginning or ending author's notes? If you know the answer, leave it in the reviews, and if you are right I will give a shout out to you or your story if you write one, and I will message you a sneak peak of the next chapter. That means if you are a guest, use a name or alias so I can give you a shout out without sounding dumb. Alright that's it. Enjoy!**_

 **Clary:**

I flopped down on my bed after carefully locking the case I had recovered in my safe. It had been a long plane ride, and it felt good to lay down in my bed.

After I had explained to the team about my messed up nerves we had been allowed to go, only having to let the scientists take a tiny sample of my blood for research. I had not been happy about that, but I had not felt like fighting.

Then, on the plane I had spent most of my time in a steaming tub of water to defrost myself, not wanting to be scared to touch anything or anyone.

Once we landed there were two cars on the runway and one of them had taken the entire team other than me back to the loft, so they could have the blessing of sleep at 3:00 in the morning. The other car had been for me to go in, so I could be brought to the White House and deposit one of the weapons. It was a normal pistol, except the bullets were a rare mixture of uranium and plutonium.

Than I finally got to come home. Now you are all caught up.

I couldn't wait until the morning to let Seb see the gun. He had military training with guns, so he would be the one to use the weapon, and I am sure that he would be stoked to get his hands on this weapon.

From what I could figure, touching the bullets was fine, but one they touched blood the chemicals spread. It was amazing really, the science put into these little pellets. It also was disappointing because it meant that they would run out and we couldn't get more. So I would definitely be in charge of making sure that Seb rationed his bullets so we wouldn't lose the best resource.

I closed my eyes and smiled softly. That mission took more out of me then I thought it had, and I was ready to sleep for a day or so and than start training the team. I had already thought out how to do all of this.

Jace was a warrior, so he obviously didn't need any more help training, although he could take some tai chi lessons if he wanted. It would help his torque when fighting others, and help him use their momentum against them. But the others, boy. They were going to need a lot of help, and I could teach them tai chi, krav maga, jujitsu, karate, taekwondo, and other forms of hand to and combat, along with using swords. Surprising right, how a genius like me knew how to fight so well, but before our father left, he taught me and Seb how to defend ourselves very, very well. Even if it involved punishment sometimes.

Either way, I figured once they had all of that mastered than Seb could teach them all how to shoot a gun accurately, considering that was more common to see these days. Although, I was thinking about asking Alec to teach everyone how to use a bow and arrow. Even I didn't know how to use one of those.

The last stage of training would be with Simon and I, so we could help everyone use their powers to the fullest. Like maximizing Jace's height jumping, or speed running, or strength fighting. Or helping Izzy run faster, and run up buildings, or over water, or how to throw the lightning she leaves in her wake. Or helping Alec use his telepathic abilities as a weapon, using them to crumble people's nerves systems, or motor functions. Or even lending Magnus a few very powerful spell books that I had collected from a few of my father's contacts for him, like the Book of the White.

II had just started to feel the welcoming embrace of sleep take hold of me when… BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP! The mission alarm went off.

I groaned and muttered some profanities under my breath as I dragged myself out from under my blankets. As I walked out into the hallway, Seb trailing behind me from our room everyone was gathering in the living room, trying to rub sleep from their eyes.

I grabbed the remote from on top of the Pac-Man machine and clicked the button to accept the call. Simon's dad popped up on the monitor, and he looked grim. Although, he kind of always does.

"Hello Clary. Simon. The rest of you. A woman from the Environmental Health Association is coming by your loft to ask you to do a job for her and her organization. Do you still have that 3-D printer Simon?" The man asked, speaking to Simon for the first time.

"Yeah… why?" Simon asked, looking to me for help. I shrugged, to tired to think to do much else.

"Good. I am going to send you a picture of a badge that I had registered under Clary's name, and you are going to print it with that. I remember you told me that it could print metal. That way you can all get into the places you need to go for your jobs." Than the screen went dark, meaning that Mr. Lewis had ended the call.

Such a welcoming man.

Simon grumbled but got to printing the image he had just been sent.

"So why does Simon's dad like you so much better than him?" Izzy asked me, looking worriedly at Simon's hunched from. How cute. Gorgeous Izzy had a little crush on nerdy little Simon.

"I honestly don't know. He has always been like that. I think Simon's dad wanted a girl instead of a boy," I told her, watching the door. It should be opening in three… two… one.

The door pushed open, a woman who looked important walking in without knocking.

Are you the… Nerd Brigade?" she asked, seeming disgusted to even say our team's name.

"We are," Magnus said, as he was the closest to her at the moment.

"My organization needs your help on a case. You know about the huge oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico right?" she asked, seeming like she was tired of even being around us.

"Yeah, but that happened years ago," Jace spoke up. "They already fixed it."

"No they didn't. And now it is getting worse. We need your team's help to clear it up," she said, showing the most emotion so far. She seemed so passionate about fixing this.

"How much for the job?" Izzy asked the woman, and a flash of hurt passed through her eyes, like she couldn't believe that anyone would need payment to do this.

"We'll do it," I cut in before she could answer. She smiled, a real, genuine smile. Then she glared at Izzy.

"$30,000."

Than the woman walked out of the loft, telling us that she would email us the address of where we needed to go, and the time of our flight to the Gulf.

"Does she check out?" I asked Alec, who had been silent the entire time, which I has assumed meant that he was reading her mind.

"Yes, she does. She is frankly very passionate about cleaning the Gulf up," he said, seeming surprised by the woman's emotional capacity.

"Alright. Everyone get some sleep, I have a feeling it is going to be a very long couple of days," I said, hoping to get them all out of here so I could show Seb the gun.

Everyone shuffled away, but I stopped Seb from leaving.

"You okay sis?" he asked, his brow furrowing just like it always did when we were kids and he would focus on learning a new move.

"Yeah, yeah, everything is fine. I want to show you something," I told him, leading him into our room, and to the safe where I was keeping the weapon.

I pulled it out and showed it to him, explaining what it would do to someone who was shot with it.

Seb whistled and handled the gun with appreciation before locking it back in the safe. "After all," he told me, "we wouldn't be needing it to clean up some water."

 **Jace:**

We stepped onto the tarmac, our jet having just landed outside the facility that the bossy woman worked in.

I was somewhat happy to be able to do a job that was so important to the world, but I also was pissed that she had woken us up from my recovery sleep. Seriously, we had just gotten back from fighting some mercenaries, in like the coldest place on Earth, and now we barely got an hour of sleep before we were at it again. This better not be how it always was, or I would have a few not so nice words with our clients.

"Okay everyone, here is the plan. Izzy, speed us to the facility two at a time, starting with Simon and Jace, and when you get there, start setting up the lab equipment so when I get there my friend can begin working on a solution to the oil." Clary used Alec's group telepathy link to communicate over the roar of the plane's engine.

"What friend?" I thought back to the group.

"Someone you wouldn't know." Okay. More than a little cryptic but okay.

 **-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-**

Two hours later, when Clary arrived at the makeshift lab we had set up with a man who looked like he could be her father, I was immediately on edge.

"Who's this?" I asked, getting in a fighting stance. I could see Simon, who looked uncharacteristically angry, trying to restrain a murderous looking Seb. Who was this guy?

"This is Boxer," she said, looking like she herself was just barely able to not kill this guy.

"Why is he called Boxer and how do you know him?" I questioned further.

"He was my dad's friend," She began and I was immediately set on edge. Her dad was a screwed up man, so this couldn't be good. "And he is called Boxer because him and my dad liked to use me as a punching bag," she ground out through gritted teeth.

I don't remember moving, but in the next second I was across the room, punching Boxer square in the face. Seb was right next to me, and we beat the guy up until Clary managed to calm us down. This guy better be one damn good scientist if we had to work side by side with him.

 ** _Hey everyone! I hope you liked it, don't forget to take your guesses on my catchphrases! Till next time! Bye!_**


	5. The Truth

_**I am aware that I have not updated in awhile, and I am sorry, but if you follow my other stories you will know that I have (stupidly) been trying to keep up with updating three fanfiction stories at once. It is okay now though, I will be more frequent, because I am putting my Percy Jackson One Shots on hiatus due to a depressing lack of reviews. I should actually have this story updated again probably around Christmas, but if not than Merry Christmas, or a belated Happy Hanukkah! But you guys (and girls) are awesome with the reviews, and some of you came really close with guessing the three things that I always say. They were Enjoy! Till next time! And Bye! Alright, so let's get back to this story (finally) and as you should now know… Enjoy!**_

 **Simon:**

This "Boxer" dude was a royal pain in the butt. I don't care if he was a really accomplished chemist, which he was, and I didn't care that he was the only reason that we were going to be able to get rid of the oil in the gulf, which he was. Ugh. My brain was getting off track. I hated him. Even before Clary had introduced him I knew who he was. We had been friends forever, and I had been with her all of those times when she came to my house at late hours of the night, bleeding from a million cuts, and crying even more. I had been the one to hold her as she told me how her father and his friend had abused her when they came to her house drunk after a night of the bars.

I hated him, and he hated me. He hated me because he knew that I knew who he really was, and the full truth about what he had done to Clary. And he knew that I could put him away for a long, long time. And I would love to, except Clary had asked me not to, because once her father left, everything stopped and she didn't want to see him again at court. But, ugh, did I want to put that scumbag behind bars.

As I sat on my stool, keeping a vigilant eye on him he worked away, mixing and stirring and dipping. Clary was in the opposite corner with Jace, who seemed to be comforting her. Izzy was in the other room with Magnus and Alec, who seemed to be… I don't know. Crushing? And Seb was standing right next to "Boxer," watching every move he made like a hawk. It made me glad to see that Seb was back in Clary's life, and after everything that he knew had happened to her, that he was being super overprotective.

I made my way over to Seb. "Hey. I know Clary should be the one doing this but I don't want to make her go through it again. The team deserves to know who they are working with, and I am going to tell them," I told him. He nodded, agreeing with me. "Just watch over him and Clary while I tell them."

"Of course Si," he assured me, glaring at the man currently adding some chemical to the beaker. I nodded to him before heading over to Jace and Clary.

"Hey guys. Clary, stay here with Seb, and Jace, come with me. I have some things to tell you," I said, breaking up whatever moment they were evidently having.

Clary nodded sadly, knowing what I was going to tell the team. When she noticed Jace looking at her worriedly, like he was scared to leave her she urged him on. "Go ahead Jace. This is important, and I will be fine." I doubted that she would actually be fine, but Jace got up and followed me to the room where the others were.

"All right. You might want to be sitting down for this," I said to the gathered group. They sat down, looking super confused.

"Boxer. You all need to know the truth about who you are working with out there."

They looked even more confused, and Jace's eyes were like storm clouds, probably having guessed at some of what I was going to tell them.

"What do you mean, the truth?"Jace bit out, narrowing his eyes.

"First of all, Boxer's real name is Meliorn, and he didn't just hit Clary. He raped her. Every single Tuesday for three years. He took her innocence, and when it was time for him to go to jail for it, Valentine got him away and hid him. I have no idea how Cary found him, or how she is in the same room as him, but you all needed to know that," I told them, each of their eyes hardening as I explained.

No one said anything, but Jace stood up quickly and stalked toward the door, his face full of fury. I tried to block his path, but I knew it wouldn't work. He was a freaking warrior after all. I was just a scrawny genius.

He predictably shoved right by me, and threw open the door. Then I watched as he plastered on the fakest smile I had ever seen and called out to Meliorn. "Hey Boxer, we're on a clock here. Is the serum finished?" He asked him.

Shoot. I knew what he was doing. He was going to make sure that Meliorn was done with the serum and then probably kill him for what he had done to Clary.

"Indeed. I just finished it a moment ago," was Meliorns reply.

"Good." Jace dropped his smile as he began walking over to Meliorn, who backed up as he did.

Then when Meliorn was pressed against the back wall Jace swung his fist back and directed a devastating haymaker at his head.

SLAM! His fist connected, and Meliorn dropped, probably for good.

"We have the serum, lets collect it and head out. I want to get back to the loft as soon as possible," Jace told us, his face already starting to look less angry.

We all hurried around, breaking down our lab and I saw Jace walking over to where CLary and Seb were huddled up in the corner, talking in hushed voices.

I ran over to Jace and stopped him. "Jace. Let her have some time with Seb. He can help her better than either of us."

He nodded, although he seemed unhappy about it, and began to help the others.

I continued on to where Clary was though and I caught a few terrifying words.

"Valentine is coming after us."

 _ **Sorry its so short, but I really will update soon. Till next time! Bye!**_


	6. They'll Be Coming

_**Hi everyone! I don't know if you follow my other story or not, but I finally finished writing One Drop Is All It Takes, and now I can put all of my focus on this story. So, even though updates have been sporadic lately, they should be coming every week or so! I know a lot of authors write their whole story out and then update on a schedule, but I write each chapter as I go, which is why I take longer sometimes. On with the story! Enjoy!**_

 **Post Operation: The Loft**

 **Magnus:**

I had hoped that once we got back from the job we would be able to just crash for a day or two, but no.

I don't know what had happened, but since the warehouse Simon, Clary, and Seb had been acting really weird. They almost seemed paranoid, although I couldn't imagine why. So now, as soon as we got back, Clary told us all to get into the training room for some late night combat lessons.

On the upside, she seemed to be loosening up around us, but she also was making us train after a two day stint of being awake. Sooo… I think I would have rathered biscuit to just go back to having the emotional capability of a statue.

"Alright everyone! I know that you are all tired, and I am not, so you can all take turns fighting against me, and I'll give you some pointers, and if you all still suck at fighting, we will go two vs. one! No magic!" Clary looked at me. I didn't even have the energy to come up with a sarcastic remark.

"Wonderful. Izzy! You're first," Clary called out from the mat in the front of the room. Izzy grumbled and got up, stretching before getting ready to fight. I figured this would be interesting, considering Clary was a nerd and Izzy was a superspeed warrior.

Izzy took off, running around and around Clary in circles. Any moment now she would probably lash out at her and the fight would be over, Clary on the ground. Maybe, she would be in such discomfort that she would let us all leave.

Clary looked like she was calculating, and then she leaped upwards, almost inhumanly, spinning over the blur that was Izzy and landed outside the circle, swiping her foot out and tripping Izzy, sending her flying across the room faster than any of us could watch.

My jaw dropped. I was awake now. Clary tilted her head before shouting tips out to Izzy. "Circles work for a short amount of time, but if you do it for too long, it is easy to trip you!"

"Magnus! You're up!"

I gulped. I didn't want to fight her now. I liked my spleen in place.

I stood up and walked into the ring. I thought about how to do this. Biscuit was small, and I was much bigger than her, but my only real way of fighting was magic, and that wasn't allowed… so what? Rush her and win by hugging her to death? I don't think that would work. And I am completely sure that she would not appreciate the gesture.

Finally, I suppose Clary got tired of waiting and she charged. She ran a little ways and jumped into a dragon kick. It was like watching a slow motion video, seeing her foot coming towards me, and then, nothing.

I dodged out of the way just in time, but Clary somehow saw that coming and she spun herself around mid air, using her other leg to kick me in the chest. I crashed, and crawled out of the ring.

"I'm done. I give up," I said weakly as I laid down.

"There is no giving up in a real battle!" Clary shouted, not even breathing heavily.

"Yeah, well in a real battle I can use magic to fight!" I shouted back from my position on the floor. I had no plans of getting up for a few years at this point.

"Fine. Jace! Time for the real battle. Kind of," Clary called to the warrior. I somehow managed to drag myself to sitting position. Even my intense fatigue would not stop me from watching this. Jace was a warrior. He was born for this, for fighting and winning. I would bet my magic that he has never been bested in hand to hand combat his entire life.

I would bet my cat that he wasn't about to. I did think that Clary would prove a good opponent, but even she could not beat out a warrior at fighting. Not unless she was one herself, which she wasn't. I could tell that sort of thing.

Jace went for the first attack, sprinting across the mat and sliding as he came near her, spinning himself on the floor so he swept by her legs with his own kicking out. That shouldn't have been possible to react to, unless you counted being knocked down a reaction, but Clary jumped over his legs like they were playing with a jump rope. Before Jace had time to get off the floor (even though it took him almost no time) Clary was running at him, jumping at him as he finally stood, and swinging herself around his neck and shoulders like Black Widow.

He went down with a thump. She put her sock covered foot on his neck, signaling that he had lost.

I was slack jawed for the second time in less than an hour. Clary had just beaten a warrior in less than a minute. Where the hell had she learned how to do any of this? What she just did shouldn't have been possible. And yet…

"Come on! You all have to be better! YOU HAVE TO BE READY!" Clary screamed, her voice filling with primal fear and anger, sorrow and loss.

She fell to the mat, tears falling from her cheeks like glitter falls from my hair when I dance.

Since Jace was the closest he sat up and wrapped her in a hug, trying to calm her down. Usually I would be right next to him, not wanting anyone to be that upset, but something she had said had unnerved me.

"Clary. What do we have to be ready for?" I asked cautiously, not sure if I wanted to know the answer to that question. After what I had learned about her, and the suspicions I had that what I did know wasn't even near the worst of it, I wasn't sure that I would want to know what had her this scared. Plus, with how her Seb and Simon had been acting… it all had to be connected.

"HIM! WE ALL HAVE TO BE READY! HE'LL KILL US ALL!" She shouted, still in hysterics. At this point Simon and Seb were hugging her too, and Izzy was rubbing her back. Even Alec was there, just offering support.

"Clary! Who is he? Who is going to kill us all?" I shouted to her, hating to do this to her, but needing to put my suspicions at ease.

Clary just shook her head over and over. I had never seen anything like this from her. She had always seemed like emotions were fake with her, but you couldn't fake this. This was terrifyingly real.

I walked over and made her look at me. "Who is it Clary?" I asked sternly.

"V-valentine," she finally whispered.

I backed up tripping over my own feet. It felt like a lump of rocks had settled in my stomach. I had heard things about Valentine. From her, from others. It wasn't that hard. He was a scary man.

And with what I knew he had done to her, I could only imagine how scary this all was for her.

"And Jocelyn."

This brought me back.

Jace had almost backed up when Clary mentioned Valentine, and now he was next to me.

At the mention of this Jocelyn, Seb moved back a little too, like he was scared Clary was going to be the next monster unleashed into this room.

Only Simon stayed with her, the twins joining the rest of us. Then Clary stopped crying, seeming to regain herself.

"Who is Jocelyn Clary?" I asked her.

She wiped her tears from her face, and it was obvious she trying to re-cage her demons that were rampaging around in her head. And I am sure there were a lot of them.

Finally she answered me. "My mother."

 **Seb:**

When I had found out that Valentine was coming after us, I had been terrified. I had heard he stories of the things he had been doing since he left.

What I didn't know, was that he would have Jocelyn too.

After dropping the bomb, Clary had explained what she knew. SHe told us that Valentine had only left Jocelyn because he didn't want to be around her, but he still loved our mother, if he could love. So now, since we were both here, he would have gone back to her, and Jocelyn already tortured Clary as a child, so now she would be coming to finish the job.

I felt responsible. I had never been able to save Clary then, and I had a feeling that I wouldn't be able to now either. I think this time only Clary could save herself.

This all explained why Clary insisted on the late night training. I had seen both Jocelyn and Valentine training with each other before he left. They were animals with any kind of weapon, or just with their hands. Even Clary and Jace's skill combined wouldn't be able to hold off one of them alone. To hold of the two of them together, we would all need to be that good, and even then, we would still need a miracle.

I had always suspected the reason that our family was full of naturally good fighters was from the experiments Valentine put us through, using unknown substances to inject into our blood.

And now, we were coming full circle with our abilities. And the rewards were not worth the price we had payed. Not even remotely close.

So now, later that same night, looking at Clary as she finally fell asleep in our room, I promised to be ready. To be there for her. Because this was going to be one hell of a battle, and I had a feeling that we were all going to leave it with some more scars.

And I might not be able to prevent my baby sister from getting those scars, physical and mental, but I vowed to be there to help her cope with the new marks that would plague her psyche. I would help my little sister get through the things I hadn't been able to stop her from going through in the first place.

Otherwise, my name wasn't Sebastian Morgenstern. Although, I had become increasingly less sure that that was a name to be proud of anymore.

Morgenstern. My father's name. The Morning Star. Well, if he was a star, I would make sure it was a shooting one, and when I get to make my wish, it will be that he falls out of the sky. And that I get to watch.

 ** _Yeah, dark, I know. Thank you Tawny for your advice not to get into this dark stuff yet, but I have a plan, and it is required. Till next time! Bye!_**


	7. Specialties

_**Hi! Are you all surprised to see that I am back so soon? I am. (even though it isn't that soon), I figure that I will be done with this story at around 25 chapters because of how long they are, so probably around spring break. Just to give you super advance warning, although I am going to write another story for TMI, maybe I will finally write the one about the crew in spy school...? I don't really know yet because you know how things go when you get an idea. If you can't tell, I love AU's! Also, if you are a fan of Warriors, definitely check out TaleofUrban's one shot Light's Victory, it's one of my favorites from that fandom! Okay, I'm done with the mostly irrelevant talking now. Enjoy!**_

 **Jace:**

Ever since Clary basically broke during our late night training session she has been acting normal, but that almost worried me more. We hadn't had any jobs, so we were all dedicating any free time to training for the impending battle.

Clary didn't seem to need sleep, so she was teaching us all day, and then I could hear her training herself to death all night, determined to be ready for when Valentine and Jocelyn come back.

After all of the training she had been doing I wouldn't want to fight her, but she insisted that it wasn't enough, that it was never enough.

I don't know how she thought that, considering that I was a Warrior, someone literally born to never be beaten, and I wasn't, until she came along and whooped me. She could beat me, and she was convinced that she wasn't good enough yet to beat her dad or mother, who were both not Warriors, so I couldn't even imagine how good they were.

Seb wasn't much better though, constantly in his and Clary's room. Apparently he had never been a good hand to hand fighter, so he was looking for the more strategic approach to this, seeing if he could find them before they found us. I didn't know how either of them stayed up all night and worked all day and didn't fall down with exhaustion. I had a feeling it was a side effect of the experimentation Clary had told em that her mother and father did on them.

The worst thing about this entire situation, as selfish as it was, was that I had been hoping to use our downtime from a job as time to get closer to her. I don't know, I probably never would, but I was inexplicably drawn to her. I liked her, and I wanted to figure that out, and now we had to prepare for a fight to the death. Just another day in the Nerd Brigade (although I was still very much against the name).

BING! BING! BING!

From the main room a familiar alarm went off, signaling a message from Senator Lewis, Simon's dad.

I honestly half expected Clary to ignore it, considering there were much more pressing matters to attend to than a job, but then I thought about that and realized that it wasn't at all true.

Sure, this was the most important thing to us right now, but in the larger picture, the conflict would hurt very few people, where as whatever Senator Lewis was calling for might be a huge thing that is extinction level, and it is very important, otherwise he would have called someone else.

So yeah, that was a no go on Clary ignoring it, although she looked like she had a few things in particular she wanted to say to Raziel about his timing on this mission.

There I go again, calling them missions like I'm some kind of damn spy. Which I was not. Those guys were jerkwads.

I walked into the main rom after hearing Clary actually accept the call. She stood in front of the screen, almost everyone else already gathered, minus Simon, who was refusing to say hello to his dad for some reason.

"Senator," Clary greeted, too stressed to add emotion (because you know how she is, always getting the most stone cold when she is stressed).

"Clary!" The Senator greeted Clary like she was his best friend. "I have a very special job for your team!" he announced.

This made me uneasy, because no one should sound this happy about the kind of jobs that we were given. All of our jobs sucked.

"Details Senator," Clary told him, letting him know that we would do it.

"Of course. There is a team of Special Ops being held hostage in an Afghan terrorist base. We need you to recover them before they are executed. Can you do it?" He asked us all, for once acknowledging that we were all here.

"Of course we can do it," Clary said through gritted teeth, although I sensed it was not for any reason I would have guessed.

"Wonderful. Maximum casualties lies at three," the Senator informed us.

"We don't deal in casualties. Everyone lives," Clary snapped at him, something obviously grating on her nerves.

"Good luck," Lewis said before ending the video conference.

Clary turned towards all of us. "It's about time I showed you all something Magnus and I have been working on," she said, gesturing for us to follow her.

We walked into the hallway where all of our rooms where, and Clary led us up to a closest that was always kept locked. I had assumed it was where she held the finances and paperwork for this place and the payment for the missions we went on, but she pulled a key from a necklace around her neck and unlocked the door.

Inside was a large room, about as big as the training room, and it was filled to the brim with clothes and changing screens. Lining the walls in niches were shoes upon shoes in all different styles, and there were large racks next to them all filled with what almost looked like gear. It basically looked like the wardrobe department of an action movie set.

"This is mostly Magnus' doing, but the two of us together have designed special team gear for every occasion that we would need it for. This one," Clary held up a somewhat loose thick materialed set of gear with light blue accents and the Nerd Brigade insignia on the front, "This one is of cold climates, like our first mission. And this one," she picked out another one that was made for one of the men, and it was a suit that she told us had kevlar padding all under it, " is forgoing undercover in a formal setting."

And finally, skipping over many different options of gear, she held up a kevlar padded gear set that was almost gauzy it was so thin, with sandy orange finishes, "This one is for here we will be going now, in sandy, hot climates."

Magnus looked very pleased with his work, everyone else looked slightly confused about how they had had time to do all of this, and I was honestly just super impressed.

"Get changed everyone, and get stretched. We have a lot of work ahead of us if a special ops unit could be taken down by these guys," she ordered us and everyone grabbed the gear set from their own rack, along with the pair of shoes Magnus pointed out for them, but I didn't get changed yet. Neither did Clary.

"Why do you look so pissed to be going somewhere hot?" I asked her, finally pinpointing her source of irritation.

"Because heat works the same way that coldness does for me. I don't feel it, and it doesn't affect me, but I absorb it and it affects those around me. Like, I spend more than a little while in the extreme heat and my core temperature rises and my skin gets so hot that I burn anyone I touch, or anything. It makes it hard to wear clothing or gear, which is why I avoid it," she told me, opening up honestly for the first time in a while to me.

"I'm sorry Clare. We'll get in and out quick enough that nothing too bad happens," I promised her, and I meant it completely, much to my surprise.

"Thanks Jace. It means a lot. Now go get changed," Clary responded and I gave her a small smile and nodded before disappearing behind a changing screen.

This would be an interesting job. We better be getting paid a lot of money for this one.

 **Alec:**

I hated warm weather. I hated it with a burning passion. Oh no, I just made a bad pun. Let's restart. I hated it so much that I wanted to die whenever I was in it. And this weather was a lot more than just warm. This was scalding.

And I wasn't the only one who felt it and hated it. Clary had been cursing creatively since we got here, saying that she could feel her core temperature rising already.

I stayed far away.

We trekked through the desert landscape, having to be dropped off a few miles from the base so they didn't know we were coming. Isabel would race ahead and scout out before reporting back to us, and now we were within seeing distance of the base.

The plan was to get close enough for me to read someone's mind, and figure out where the special ops team was being held, and then Isabel would run around disarming the men, and after that we would storm the base, hopefully rescuing the men without any casualties.

And you know, there was always the fact that if anyone got too close or a door got in our way Clary could just melt the skin or metal off of them.

Always fun.

Magnus readjusted his headscarf, and caught me watching. He winked at me. I looked away, blushing from something other than the heat.

Magnus had made it very clear to me that he was Bi, and interested, and I was too. He was smart, talented, funny, and not afraid to show his mind. I liked those traits in a man, and he was just so, intriguing. I sensed some kind of dark past in him, and I wanted to be there for him when it came out.

I was honestly just waiting for an appropriate time to talk to him, but that hadn't really happened yet, what with all of the mercenaries, oil spills, and looming threats.

Just then a thought that definitely wasn't mine came through my brain. "Stop. I'm close enough," I announced.

Everyone halted their progress and Isabel came running back. I honed in a one specific stream of though, trying to pick through it for the information that I wanted.

"The special ops are in basement," I told the team, finally finding the information wanted from the guard.

"Alright then. I guess it's my turn now," Izzy said before speeding away to begin disarming the men in the compound.

And now we wait. I hate waiting.

 ** _H **ey** everyone! Show me some love, and drop a review! Also, during the course of writing this chapter I have decided that my next story will not be spy school, but instead it will be about Clary having an inner voice that tells her when people are going to die and she has to make some hard choices. (Yes, it is dark. Yes, it will be rated M.) I am going to publish that once I get to around chapter 15 or so, so I don't have to worry about both of them for too long, but keep an eye out for Until The Dawn!_**


	8. Drop Dead

_**Hi everyone! I am trying my hardest here to update on time, and I don't know if I will as I am writing this, because I write the author's note before I write the story, but I promise on the River Styx that I will try my hardest. Also, please drop a review, because it makes my day, and to those of you who have been, I love it, and unless you are an author, you really cannot understand how good it makes me feel. So thank you! And if there are a few inconsistencies with backstory or how far into a relationship people are than I am sorry, but I have a hard time remembering, and I really do not have the time to go back through all of my chapters for every question I have and look for it, so please don't bother reviewing on the mistakes, because I cannot fix them and post on time. Either way, I hope you all checked out TaleofUrban's oneshot, and dropped a review for him, because it was really good! Now, onto the important stuff… the story! And yes, I am pretty sure I used a TDA quote except for with Sizzy. Enjoy!**_

 _ **Izzy:**_

I raced through the compound, taking out all of the guns I saw, and trying my best to disengage any weapons that could be turned against us in the future. I knew the team was relying on me to do this, since I was the only one who could, and even more stressing, I knew that the lives of a whole team of men depended on me.

Once all of the men were without their weapons (and very confused about it, and the weapons were properly disposed of, I sped back to where the team was waiting.

"We are a go. I repeat, we are a go!" I told them, having always wanted to say that in context. Alec rolled his eyes at me, but took his bow and quiver out and nocked the first arrow.

"Let's do it baby sister," he said with as much of a smirk as he could manage, knowing how much I hated it when he called me that.

I stuck my tongue out at him before getting serious. "So is our plan literally just storm the camp and get the special ops?" I asked, really hoping someone had come up with a better plan since I had left, although there was almost no chance of that.

"Yeah, pretty much," Simon answered, blushing when I looked him in the eyes. It was so endearing when he did that.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I might, just maybe, have a minor crush on Simon Lewis, the dorkiest boy I had ever met? No. Ah, well, I do.

I knew we were complete opposites, but I liked him, and his nerdiness, and his manners, and how he treated me like a boy should treat a girl. I just liked him.

"Alright then. Let's do it!" I said, eager to try out the new things CLary had taught me on these jerks.

We all ran (or sped) towards the compound, then Jace, Clary, and Alec broke off to go get the prisoners, and Simon, Magnus, Seb, and I branched off towards where the taliban were gathered, trying to find out what happened. Our job was to distract and incapacitate, but not to kill. We only needed to give the others enough time to get the prisoners out.

"I love messing with people like this," Seb said. I nodded, realizing that since he had been a Marine and a Navy Seal, he would have encountered taliban members a lot during his tours.

"Same," Simon added on. "It's like screwing with the bullies at school," he continued. I grinned, glad he had stood up to them. I wish I had stood up to my "friends" when they bullied kids in my school. I had just been to scared.

"Izzy! Watch out!" Seb shouted and I sped out of the way just as one of the men swung a piece of wood at where my head would have been. I have got to stop daydreaming on the job. It really wasn't good for my safety. Thank the Angel for how overly protective Seb was, even if he was usually over protective about Clary. I didn't particularly want a splinter in my brain. Although, who would?

We quickly had the taliban members tied up in a circle, something straight out of an old western movie.

We were just about to go check on Clary, Jace, and Alec, when they came running out of another section of the complex, the now released Special Ops right behind them.

It looked like they were saying something, but I couldn't hear due to how far away they were. They got closer and I began to make out what they were shouting at us. "Go, go! Hurry!" They were screaming while waving their hands gesturing to leave.

Then from behind them, probably no more than a hundred yards back, at least a dozen taliban members rounded the corner, their guns blazing as they shot at our team. The bullets didn't hit anyone, although they kicked up dirt and stucco around them.

I zoomed over, grabbing the members of the Special ops unit first and bringing them out of the base to safety, before going back for my friends, who were now completely under fire. The Nerd Brigade all hid behind a wall while the armed men shot at them, giving them no time to escape or do anything.

I raced through when there was a tiny gap in the shooting and grabbed Alec, Simon, Seb, Jace, Magnus, and I thought Clary. I sped away, bringing them the same distance as the Special Ops, a few miles from the base.

Jace noticed first. "Where is Clary?!" He shouted, already more distressed than I had ever seen him. It had been evident that they liked each other, but I hadn't known it was this important to them.

I looked around. "I-I thought I had her. She must be back at the compound," I said, tears prickling in my eyes. This was the first time there had been a real chance of danger, and I had been the one to put someone in it.

"You have to take us back there!" Seb shouted at me, gesturing to him and Jace, meaning that he knew about Jace's feelings for Clary.

"O-of course…" I said, about to say more but then I collapsed.

Alec slid to my side, and quieted Seb and Jace down. "She can't bring anyone anywhere. She maxed out her powers for now by running over this much sand," he told them, his voice leaving no room for argument.

At that, Jace turned and ran in the direction we had come from, determined to get back and save Clary. Seb ran after him, the two of them going as fast as they could.

No one was sure what to do. The Special Ops looked like they wanted to help but weren't sure how. There was no way Alec would leave my side, which meant that Magnus would stay too, but I expected Simon to run after Seb and Jace, wanting to save his best friend. He looked like he was about to too, but then he turned back to me and his resolve hardened.

"I'm here for you Izzy," he said, his voice sweet, although it sounded like he would be ready to kill someone who tried to harm me.

"Isabelle. I want you to call me Isabelle," I whispered, weaker than I had ever been. I don't know how I hadn't noticed this before.

He blushed. "Isabelle."

I smiled weakly before I fell asleep.

 **Jace:**

I ran across the sand, my legs pumping. We were at least two miles away at this point from the complex, and Clary wasn't going to have enough time for us to get there. That thought spurred me to run even faster.

I had left Seb behind some time ago, running faster than he could keep up with. Running across sand was hard work, and even with my training as a Warrior, I still had trouble with it.

The compound loomed up ahead of me, only probably a half mile away at this point. I couldn't stop picturing Clary hiding somewhere, afraid, and thinking we had left her.

The thought broke my heart. I would never leave her. I knew that with absolute certainty now. I don't know when it happened exactly, but I think I loved Clary. This was more than a crush for me. This was everything to me.

Her laugh, her smile, her eyes when she got a plan, how she always had ink or pencil lead on her hand from drawing. How her nose scrunched up when she concentrated.

I had been sprinting, thinking of Clary causing me to basically fly across the desert.

I was already in the base.

It was quiet. It shouldn't be quiet.

No. I ran in the direction of where we had been hiding.

No. I saw no taliban members, and a lot of blood.

No. I heard nothing. No shouts for help, no gunshots. Nothing.

No. I finally saw her. Her fiery hair splayed out on the ground. Three bullet holes in her stomach.

No, no, no. I leaned over her, feeling for a pulse.

I didn't feel anything. Then a little beat. Then nothing. Then another little beat.

I almost cried with relief. I choked back a sob and began administering the first aid training she had made us all learn. I couldn't help but think that she was saving herself. She always did know what we would need.

Her eyes fluttered. Yes.

She started breathing a little on her own. Yes.

I checked for an exit wound on the bullet holes. All of them had one. Yes.

I took the gear scarf thing that Magnus had given to us at some point and wrapped it around her midsection. Yes, yes, yes.

She would live. Hopefully. She had lost blood, but the sand had kept a lot of it from spilling. She had probably only lost a little over a liter. That was savable.

Seb finally showed up. He took Clary's phone and called Simon's dad, telling him to get the helicopter in here to get us.

He looked around and found that the Taliban members had run.

It was all a blur.

But Clary was alive. And I loved her. Damn.

 **Till next time! Bye!**


	9. Dungeons and Dragons and Dating

_**Hey everyone! I'm back! *Read that in a creepy voice* I think I am going to just start updating every Tuesday from now on, because that gives me a week to write my chapters. I realized I haven't done a disclaimer in awhile, so the character's belong to Cassie Clare, the idea/inspiration is from the tv show Scorpion, and the plot is all mine! Kind of. Also, no I do not own the rights to Dungeons and Dragons, nor have I ever played it, so please do not be offended if I fail spectacularly at trying to make the character's play it. Either way, drop a review! Enjoy!**_

 **Seb:**

I think yesterday was the scariest twenty four hours of my life, and that is saying something. I thought Clary died, and then I found out that she wasn't, but then Jace asked me if he could ask her out, being the polite young man he is, and now I am scared out of my goddamn mind that that golden boy is going to break my baby sisters heart, because I said yes.

I talked to Izzy, who confided that Jace had always been a player, going through girl's as fast as he could find them, using his looks for everything that wasn't good. I had been about to go find Jace and tell him that I had changed my mind after that.

Then she had told me that he seemed different now. He seemed to her like he was in love. And that scared the crap out of me. That man whore in love with my little sister. No way.

But the absolute conviction in which Izzy told me these things made me decide to give him a chance. But I had an entire weapons room filled with things with which I would be more than ready to use on Jace if her hurt Clary.

That I could promise you.

We had all finally gotten some sleep after we got back. Clary, having been just about dead, was in no condition to train us, so we got to crash early. Clary was now in the infirmary, healing rapidly, due to having been able to use enough energy to do something to the molecules in her body, like heat them up, to make herself regenerate cells faster or something.

I don't know, I kind of zoned out when she explained it. I wasn't the nerd here. I was guns for hire, although I hadn't been hired, and Clary was restricting me from using my gun, saying that Valentine and Jocelyn wouldn't give me a chance to use it.

So I told her not to spontaneously combust, being my natural helpful self, and left her to it.

Everyone seemed to be relaxing, sleeping, or taking the time off to talk about their new relationships, but I couldn't forget the looming threat that was my parents.

I couldn't believe that they would do this to us, even though I knew they were. Clary always accused me of being more ignorant to their bad side, and I had completely ignored her, but I was wondering if she was right.

Was I just more prone to believing the lies they threw at me? That scared me more than anything else. I didn't want to be a liability, or be someone who had to be watched. I wanted to be helpful.

So I sat down at my desk and threw myself into trying to figure out where my parents were, so we would be ready. So I would be ready.

"Hey," Clary said from next to me, having healed herself enough to get into a wheelchair and come find me.

She put her hand on my shoulder, and left it there for a few moments, not saying anything else. Then she spoke again. "I'm here," she said. And then she rolled out of the room, knowing that that was all I needed to hear.

Once she was gone I let a lone tear fall from my shining green eyes. I needed to be able to do something to help that amazing creature that I was blessed to be able to call my little sister. And I was prepared to die myself in the process.

Although I really hoped it didn't come to that. I hadn't prayed in like fifteen years and I don't think the few days I had would be able to get me into the high place with all the bad things I had done for my country and family.

 **Clary:**

A few hours after I went in to offer some support to Seb I woke up again, finding myself all healed up. I had been wondering whether falling asleep with my nerves overheated would lessen my immunity to the heat and make me sweat or get a fever but it didn't.

I suppose I have been getting stronger at controlling my shattered nerves lately. It could almost count as a superpower at this point.

And that was a really good thing because I don't know if I would be able to defeat either Jocelyn or Valentine without them.

I walked out into the main gaming room gingerly, the place where I had been shot (multiple times) still extremely sore. Having bullets go through you will do that to a person.

"Gather round young warriors!" I shouted into the intercom that would blast my message around the loft.

A second later Simon was in the game room and out of breath, his eyes all lit up and a grin of pure joy on his face.

"No way!" He shouted to me, waiting for me to agree with him.

"Yup. It's been a while," I replied, making his grin grow even wider. He had been here first because he had recognized our old gaming phrase from when we played Dungeons and Dragons together. It meant we were going to start a campaign.

Soon after everyone else arrived, all of them laughing about something.

I gestured to the couch, where Simon had helped me set out a bunch of game controllers for our modified D&D game.

When Magnus saw the video screens he looked like he was ready to faint. I never would have guessed that he was a fan. I had taken out all of the little screens for this, and put them all onto the D&D home screen, having already set up a character for each of them based on their abilities and looks. They got to choose their gamertag, but that was it. We were going to be realistic here.

Or at least they were Simon and I had been playing since before we hit double digits and there was no way we were going to give up all of our ranking for a completely realistic game. So I kept my old warlock/warrior avatar, Heosphoros, who was super high ranked and fairly well known in the D&D world.

And Simon stayed as Count Chocula, a cartoon character from our old favorite diner, who was a Rogue and Warrior, and was also high ranked and well known in the roleplay universe. Frankly, how could either of ours not be? We graduated college before most people graduated from middle school, so we had a lot of time between doing whatever it was we were told to do to fill our time. We spent most of it playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Everyone quickly sat down, and named their character's. It seemed all of our friends fit pretty well into the Nerd section of the Nerd Brigade.

Izzy named her character Heiress, for some old joke her and Alec had apparently.

Jace named his Veni, which he told me meant "I have come" or something similar. I thought the mysteriousness of it suited him.

Alec became Parabatai, which was a bond of brothers, and almost had Jace in tears as he named his character that. I don't know why, although it seemed him and Jace had spoken of this thing. Psychology textbooks do not teach you about inside jokes.

Magnus called his eccentric Warlock ChairmanMeow, which he told me was the name of his cat. I didn't dare ask any further for fear of a terrible and sappy story.

And Seb decided to start calling his Erchomai, which was roughly "I am coming", and also a jab at Jace I think, probably for him having asked Seb if he could ask me out, as a sort of warning even though we were playing a fucking _game._

Also, yes, Jace had asked me out. And yes, I had told him yes, and cried, which was unusual for me.

But hey, having this group was changing lots of things in me, and slowly melting the ice around my heart.

I didn't mind that at all.

So we all sat down and began our campaign, enjoying the time off, enjoying each other, and of course, enjoying the game.

 _ **Thank you all for reading this new chapter! Wow, that was a weird way to put it, but don't forget about leaving me that review! I want to hit 100 reviews on on of my stories, and this is the only one left running, soooo…! Till next time! Bye!**_


	10. Squables

**_Guys and gals! I think I have officially hit a record of updating on a schedule! Sadly, thats only like two, but hey, it's something! Also, has anyone read the A Court of Thorns and Roses series? Cause I am reading it now and FEYSAND! Okay, I'm done. Enjoy!_**

 **Jace:**

We played D&D until we literally could not keep our eyes open, so at the early hours of the morning we stumbled back to our rooms, leaving the game room tables covered in now empty red bull cans and coffee mugs.

I think part of the reason why we stayed up playing so late was because we all just really wanted to beat Simon and Clary. They were whooping our butts, which was expected, since we were basically newbies, with the exception of a few times we had played before, and the two of them were pros.

I couldn't count how many times we were about to begin a quest and we would be a at a village and someone would come up to us and be all like "Yo! I've heard of you two! What happened, you like disappeared for a while there!" And then asked for some pro tips on beating a certain quest or getting a certain item.

They were promptly told to go away, and most of them did, still awestruck from seeing their avatars.

After the trillionth time or so that someone came up to us, I finally asked them. "How famous are you two in this game?"

Clary just smirked at me and replied, "Top five ranked."

My jaw dropped. "Both of you?"

"Yup. Both of us."

I couldn't fathom how much they must have played then ,to not play for months and still be that highly ranked. Millions of people played this game, and no one had been able to beat them.

"The only person who we haven't been able to beat so far is JadeWolf," she had told me.

"So you guys are third and second?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm beating Simon of course," she had said to me, smirking, evidence that he had become much more human in emotion since this team came to be, and less robotic.

"You're only beating me by a few XP, and only then because my father made me go to Washington D.C. for that weekend!" Simon had added from the other side of the room.

"Damn. That is mighty impressive little lady," I had said to her, whistling through my teeth like in the old western movies.

"Watch who you call little around these parts," Clary had replied, catching onto the theme quickly.

I had just smiled, and we had continued our conquest, one of our last before we had decided to call it a night finally.

Now, hours later, as sun snuck in from under and around my curtains, I got up, quickly showered, and dressed, ready for another hard day of training.

Instead, when I went out into the hallway I saw no one. I wandered a little bit, and still no one appeared. There wasn't anyone in the rooms either. Immediately my mind went to the worst thoughts, like for example that Valentine and Jocelyn had come during th enight and taken everyone but me while we slept.

Then I saw the little note on the door to the training room, clearly written by Clary, judging from the slightly cramped, but spiraling handwriting.

It read: Whoever you are, whenever you see this, come to the situation room. I have absolutely zero doubts that we will still be in there, no matter when you get up.

Simple, no nonsense. Definitely Clary. Although, Simon, I would guess, had crossed out situation room and written in war room.

While I was sure he had meant it as a joke, wanting to call it something that people in his favorite games or movies would call it, it hit home. And hard.

Because it was accurate. What we were getting into with Valentine and Jocelyn, it would be a war. And I wasn't sure I could stomach that, not after finally having gotten Clary to agree to being my girlfriend, much to Seb's chagrin.

I didn't want to lose anyone, not as I had lost my family when I was a kid. And there were so many who could be hurt in this conflict. Alec, Izzy, Clary. Magnus. Even Seb and Simon would break my heart if they died or were injured in this conflict.

But I knew deep down that I would have to be ready for it, and I also knew that all I could do was be there for Clary, because all of us knew that it would ultimately be up to her in the end, for better or worse.

I took a deep, rattling breath and let it loose again. Too many heavy thoughts. Bleck! Time for those later.

For right now, I had to get to the "war" room to meet up with everyone else, who was already in there I suppose.

I walked into what seemed to be the middle of a complete verbal smackdown between Seb and Clary.

I wasn't completely sure but it seemed like they were arguing over where Jocelyn and Valentine where.

There were two equally viable options, apparently, and they were both equally sure about the one that they supported.

Clary thought that they would be hiding with their old, lifetime friend, Luke Graymark, who had always been their ally. It seemed like a good guess as to where they were.

But Seb thought that that was the too obvious option, and was sure that they were hiding with a man who went by "Pangborn", who was Valentine's long time second in all his bad deeds once him and Jocelyn temporarily split apart.

I wasn't really sure what to make of all of it. From what I had heard it about the pair I might be inclined to think that they would go for the less obvious option, but then again, they were also good enough to use reverse psychology on us and go with Luke just because we thought that they wouldn't.

That was the point that Clary was making right now, gesturing animatedly around the room and to the map.

The other reason to think they would be with Luke, she argued, was that we knew where Luke was right now. He was at his "bookstore" at the other side of the city, where he lived. Pangborn, on the other hand, was a leaf in the wind. We had no clue where he was. He could be in Antartica for all we knew.

I had been standing in the doorway noticing all of these things, so when a lull in the arguing occured, I stepped into the room.

"Good. You decided to come in. Finally. What makes more sense to you, Pangborn, or Luke?" Clary immediately asked me.

I guess someone had noticed me in the doorway then.

"Um, I think it makes more sense that they would be staying with Pangborn, because we don't know where he is. If Valentine and Jocelyn know that you two know where Luke is, then they wouldn't risk staying there. So the fact that you have no idea where Pangborn is plays to their advantage," I explained, stating my final opinion on the matter.

Clay narrowed her eyes at me. Pissed, I would assume, that I hadn't agreed with her. Seb, on the other hand, looked like I had just earned some points in my favor when it came to him liking me more.

"Alright. Then what are we going to do about them if we don't know where they are?" Clary questioned Seb, very clearly in a mood this morning.

Which usually meant that she knew something neither of us did.

"We don't do anything. We just become as ready for them to strike as we can be," Seb said, sympathy in his eyes for what Clary must have been feeling.

These were the people that has emotionally, mentally, and physically tortured her for years when he couldn't do anything about it.

Clary just nodded as her face crumpled.

I went over to her and put a hand on her back, comforting her. I could have sworn that Seb bared his teeth at me and growled.

"What's going on Clary? Something else is bothering you," I noted out loud.

Seb was instantly on her, looking for whatever I saw in her face.

"I got another call from Simon's dad," she said, rubbing her hand over her face, looking more tired than anyone else.

"When?" Simon asked, latching onto the conversation.

"Literally like a half hour after you all went to sleep," she said. Now her being more tired made more sense.

"How long were you talking to him," I asked, wondering just how much sleep she had gotten last night.

"We ended the call an hour and a half ago," she said. I dropped my jaw.

"What could you have talked about for that long?" Simon asked, looking ready to punch his dad from keeping Clary from her sleep.

"Not talking. Argueing. He has become the official head of our group, linking us to the government. He guaranteed me that he would continue letting us lead however we wanted though, so I didn't bite into him about that. No. The government is very, very happy with the work we have done so far, and thinks that we could be even more effective if we had more members," she said, and then paused, waiting for that to sink in.

"My freaking father wants to make us add more team members?" Simon asked, scary calm.

"Yes. He does, and the government supports him on it," Clary replied.

"So what did you two end up deciding on?" I asked, almost scared for the answer.

"He's going to send us some potential recruits, and we get to judge them the same way Simon and I judged you all. We will be fair, and if none of them live up to the standards, then we don't have to bring them on. They should be here any moment actually," she told us.

Everyone looked shell shocked. In the time that we had been together we had all grown so close, so the thought of an outsider coming in and joining us was horrifying.

But we owed it to government to at least give them a try out, since they were providing us with our resources.

And we had set the standards pretty high, so there wasn't a big chance that anyone would get in either way.

We were all kind of just sitting there in our own thoughts until the intercom system buzzed, signaling the arrival of the potential recruits.

They filed in once we opened the door for them, and stood at attention in line. Great. THey were stiffs.

Clary and Simon sat on the same classic games as they had been sitting on when we had come to try out for the team.

The rest of us sat on the new games that had been added for our own preferences.

I could just tell that this was going to be a wonderful day. Just wonderful.

And as the first man in line spoke to me, saying, "Who would you like to try out first, Sir?" Just assuming I was leading, even though Clary had the clipboard and was sitting the farthest up.

Son we had to deal with them, but that wasn't enough, so now we also had to deal with them and they were sexist pigs.

By the Angel, I was going to need some alcohol. Maybe I could ask Seb.

 ** _Alright, so I already said what I needed to say basically, but again, please leave a review! Till next time! Enjoy!_**


	11. Beaten Bloody

_**I have a question for all of you reading this, even if you don't follow it or favorite it or anything like that. Do you like Shadowhunters (Show), Mortal Instruments (Series), or City of Bones (Movie), best? Please answer, my friends all think the wrong thing (which I won't tell you until next time!) and I want to hopefully prove them wrong. Enjoy!**_

 **Clary:**

The first possible new recruit stepped up after we cleared up we were all in charge of their fates, not just Jace.

"What are your abilities?" I asked him, using the same criteria that I had used for our friends when they tried out.

"I don't have any ma'am, but I have leadership skills, and am an excellent marksman," the man said.

Next to me, Seb snorted. "So you're a less good looking, less cool version of me," he stated, not as a question, but as a fact.

I hid my laugh behind my hand.

I would say that I hoped the rest of the wannabes were more impressive, but I didn't want to have to recruit any of them, so I won't.

The next potential stepped up from the line. Without even waiting to be asked, he said, "I have control over wind."

The young man looked smug. Then I noticed. They were all young men or women. At least the government hadn't given us older people.

"Can you fly?" I asked, not seeing how wind was really that great.

The man shifted, looking self conscious. "Well, no, but if I had some train-".

"Next!" I cut him off, sending him out of the loft, looking disappointed.

The recruits came and went, no one impressive enough to merit making our team.

Finally it was time for the last person to be tried out.

"What are your abilities?" Simon asked, seeming very bored.

"I can shapeshift," the young man told us.

"Can you control what you shift into?" I asked, intrigued. He didn't seem too cocky, or annoying, an having a shifter on the team would be nice.

"Kind of. Mostly it's a wolf, or dog, but I have managed to get a few other animals before, including an eagle," he replied.

I thought about it. I could probably train him. I had been friends once with a girl, Maia, who had been a shifter who also tended to shift into canines, and I had been able to help her concentrate on other animals to shift into them, so it wouldn't be very hard to train the man.

But I also had to consider what was going on with Seb and I's parents. I didn't want to drag someone else into this, because there wouldn't be enough time to train him. Even Jace still wouldn't have a good chance against either of my parents, and he was the best fighter I had seen in awhile, other than myself or my family.

I weighed the pros and cons, and seeing my struggle, the young shifter offered another ability. "I can half shift too," he told me.

That was a very rare skill possessed by few. It meant that if they were changing into a wolf, let's say, that they could give themselves wolf claws and teeth, but keep the rest of their body.

"Can you shift into other people?" I asked, scared for his answer. I had decided that if he answered no I would allow him onto the team. Maia had been able to shift into other people, and she had used that ability in the end to trick me, even with my genius brain, into doing some very bad things that had landed me in a lot of trouble.

Simon squeezed my hand, having been there through Maia.

"No, I haven't been able to change my human appearance," he said, seeming embarrassed by it.

"Then welcome to the Nerd Brigade," I told him, sliding off the machine I was sitting on. "Don't expect anything special," I added on before walking away and to the training room, ready to train and sweat my memories of backstabbing friends away.

I did a fairly good job of it too, stripping to just my yoga pants and sports bra because my shirt became too drenched in the foul smelling liquid. I locked myself in the room, despite the many pleas from Jace, Simon, and Seb to open the door.

I just told them to help Jordan settle into his new room and show him around and to leave me be.

I got away with it too, keeping myself sequestered in the training room, punching and kicking the bags so hard that the canvas split and the stuffing came out, for a long while. That is, until Jordan decided that he was going to show his sexist side, and say that he thought himself above training under me, because I was a girl with no born abilities, and that therefore there was no way I could be better than him.

Upon hearing this, from Jace, who stood outside the still locked door, I kicked the hanging bag so hard it swung up and the chain broke, raining bits of plaster down onto me where the chain and bag where ripped out of the ceiling.

Hearing that, Jace spent the next half hour trying to convince Jordan of my fighting prowess, to no avail. He simply didn't believe the stories. I was really beginning to regret my decision to allow him onto the team.

Finally, tired of listening to the back and forth I told Jace to bring Jordan to the training room. I wiped the sweat off of myself with a hand towel, and then opened the door for Jordan. He sauntered in, stretching for our fight.

When Jace tried to follow, I shut the door in his face. This was something that I wanted to do alone, letting myself give into the beast lingering below the surface of my skin, ready to come out for people like Jordan.

"You don't believe that I am as good as everyone says, so you're going to fight me until you do believe," I told the arrogant newbee.

Jordan smirked. I was becoming more convinced that his pleasant, calm demeanor from earlier was a complete mask, that I should have been able to see through. I specialized in that kind of thing.

"I don't want to hurt you Clary," he said, seeming so sure of himself that I almost felt bad for him. Almost.

"Don't you worry about that Wolfy," I replied, wanting to beat the man into a pulp. He really had no idea what he was getting into. Ignorant, arrogant, child.

Then I launched myself at him.

 **Izzy:**

A mere ten minutes after Clary shut the door on Jace, locking Jordan in the training room with her, the door opened once again, a barely recognizable Jordan trudging out, Clary once again locking the door behind him, not looking at all tired after a full day almost of training as hard as she could, save for the sweat dripping down her face.

Jordan was covered in half dried blood and bruises, some wicked ones already forming all over his face.

He had taken his shirt off for the fight, and there were slashes on his abdomen, even though no weapons were used.

Which meant, that Clary had scratched that deep of a mark into him with her nails. Jordan might have picked the worst possible day to go against Clary.

I think the largest damage done to Jordan was his ego though. From what I had been able to see, Clary hadn't even had a hair out of place, which meant, unsurprisingly, that Jordan had not landed a single hit, while Clary had managed to turn him into a mass of bruises, welts, and broken or sprained parts in a matter of minutes.

Yeah, there wasn't really any going back from that.

With a mumbled excuse about wanting to wash the blood off of him, Jordan disappeared into his room, leaving the rest of us gaping in his wake.

Clary was always somewhat distant with her emotions, even after the past few weeks, but she was a gentle spirit. Or so I had thought.

The thought of doing that to another person, even one like Jordan, made me sick to my stomach.

That was a part of Clary that she must have kept a very tight leash on, and it seemed everything that has happened recently had finally caused it to come undone today, and Jordan had just pissed her off the wrong way.

No one of us wanting to be around when Clary decided she needed a new sparring partner, we made ourselves scarce, the sound of her pounding into the remaining punching bag the only sound that echoed through the loft other than the running water of Jordans shower.

Simon and I headed to the game room, where he had promised to teach me how to better play D&D. I hadn't really gotten much time to spend with my boyfriend since we made it official, and that was the most terrible thing that had happened today.

When I told Alec about us, I think it was the calmest I had ever seen him go, which of course meant that he was angrier than he had ever been. I think he was ready to use his powers to somehow crush Simons mind, but I finally got him to stand down, although he had dragged Simon into a room and Simon had come out looking a few shades paler.

I don't think I want to know what Alec said to him to scare him that badly, especially since emotions even like fear were muted for Simon and Clary both.

But for now, we were in the clear. "Ready to lose?" my boyfriend asked me, smiling mischievously.

"Now why would you think I'm going to lose?" I asked, already anticipating watching him squirm while trying to come up with a non offensive answer.

"Who said I was talking about you?" he answered casually. Seeing the surprised look on my face at his easy answer he gave me an explanation. "When I told CLary that we were dating she gave me some psychology lessons for 'protection'."

"Wow. Thats low, even for her," I said, smiling though.

"Agreed," he answered half dazed, leaning in to kiss me. I met his lips with my own, feeling him smile against my lips.

A good day indeed. Well, unless you were Jordan.

 ** _A little short, I know, but hey, I thought it was pretty good. Now, calling all Warriors fans! I started a roleplay for Warriors, which is half oc, and half canon, with a slightly altered time line to allow for oc leaders and deputys, and if you are interested, PM me for more details, or how to find it! It's a lot of fun! Till next time! Bye!_**


	12. Camille Enough Said

_**Whats up guys? You know what, don't answer that, because you can't. I just started reading the Throne of Glass series and I am on Queen of Shadows. Raise your hand if you loved these books! *Raising hand super high* But you're not here for that. You're here for my first all Malec chapter! Without further ado, onto the story! Enjoy!**_

 **Magnus** _ **:**_

I woke up the morning after Clary beat Jordan into a pulp to a warmth at my back. I smiled to myself, turning around in bed to look into Alec's open eyes.

"How long have you been up Alexander?" I asked him, a blush creeping up his neck.

"Only a few minutes. But you looked so peaceful," he said, kissing my forehead.

I beamed, so glad that I had taken that flyer off the bulletin board at that diner to come here. I wouldn't have met my amazing boyfriend otherwise.

Even though I had immediately had a crush on him when I had come, I had been slightly wary, because it was unnerving to date someone who could read your mind, but when we finally talked about this, he immediately showed me how to shield my mind.

It hadn't been very hard, but I don't think I could ever convery how much it meant to me that he would do that for us.

"We're going to get yelled at if we don't go out there soon. Plus, I don't want to leave Jordan and Clary alone, since Jace is gone for the day," I said to Alexander.

He looked more alert at that. "Jace is gone? Where?" he demanded.

I put a hand on his chest. "He just went to give an in person progress report to the Senator. Clary couldn't leave because of her parents, and she trusted him to do it," I explained, repeating what Jace had told me late last night as I was going to my room.

Our room, I reminded myself, looking at the room that Alexander and I shared. We had moved into his room a few days after we made our relationship official.

That thought had me smiling as Alec climbed out of bed and walked into the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on a moment later.

I managed to get out of the warm bed, and because I has showered last night, I put on my clothes, an extravagant outfit that I had picked out last night in my head.

Just as I was finishing getting dresses our intercom beeped twice, the signal that I was being summoned to the war room to talk with someone. Probably Clary, she had been wanting my help with a new set of gear.

I wrote out a quick note for Alexander, who was still in the shower before leaving the room, shutting the door behind me.

 **Alec:**

I turned the shower off, grabbing my towel and drying myself off. Then I slipped into the clothes that I had brought into the bathroom with me.

When I emerged, clean and ready to go to breakfast with Magnus, there was no one in the room.

I walked over to the bed, where there was a note. From Magnus. I could tell because only he called me Alexander.

Alexander,

I was beeped into the war room. Don't wait for me, Biscuit and I have some extensive talking to do, that may or may not involve an exorbitant amount of coffee and tea. XOXO,

Magnus

I smiled as I read his note, laughing when he called Clary biscuit. I hd just tossed it in the wastebasket in the corner of the room when Magnus' phone buzzed with an incoming message.

Thinking he forgot it in hi rush I grabbed it and was going to bring it to him, or at least slip it under the door, when I caught sight of the message notification that had alerted me to the phones presence.

It was from someone named Camille. The message, from what I could see, said: Maggy, honey. I have a gala to attend tonight, and we always have looked so deliciously… good together. It will be just like old times.

I think if someone walked into the room they would think I was having a heart attack. In reality, I only felt like there was steam pouring out of my ears as I reread the message.

Just like old times? Magnus was with this woman? I had known he was bi, and had been with many people before, but to actually see someone he was still talking to..

Was he still talking to Camille? It seemed like they were quite familiar, because who uses ellipses with someone they weren't close with over text?

I scrolled down through his old notifications, the ones that had gone away after he looked at them, feeling like a terrible boyfriend, but unable to stop. Each scroll made my heart plummet in my chest as I saw more and more from Camille.

There were pictures she had sent him with her in racy clothing, or no clothing, and these made my spirits drop even lower. I may not have had the best judgement when it came to pretty women, but even I could tell that Camille was drop dead gorgeous.

Why would Magnus pick me over her?

And there was more, more snapchat streaks being sent, and more instagram likes and comments with lots of hearts. It didn't look very one way, it looked like Magnus was reciprocating each of these things.

I felt like crap for looking, but after having looked, I felt even worse. I was just a side fling. I think.

But how could I ask Magnus? Like, hey I looked through your notifications, who the hell is Camille?

I didn't think that would go over well. And I wasn't sure that I wanted to draw that line in the sand with Magnus, even if he was cheating, as weak as that sounded.

I loved him, I truly did. I had known it from the moment I had first talked to him, and here he was with Camille.

The thought shattered my heart into a thousand pieces.

 **Magnus:**

A few hours later, I walked out of the war room, Clary finally happy with my designs, and I made my way to the training room, where I could hear the twang of a bowstring as Alec practiced his archery.

"Hello Alexander," I greeted him, grinning at the sight of his bare torso.

I expected him to turn around and greet me back, but he just tightened his jaw and ignored me, firing a few more arrows at the target.

"Alexander?" I asked, worry evident in my voice.

And he snarled at me. Snarled. "You don't get to call me that."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, taking a few steps closer.

He whirled on me. "Camille texted. Shouldn't you be getting ready for a gala?" he growled.

I blanched. I had never seen him this angry before. And how did he know about Camille?

"What do you know about Camille?" I demanded.

"I know that you two are more than just friends. I know that she's gorgeous, and not afraid to show you her body. I know that you've been doing the same things back," he said, his voice going from raging to scary calm, the kind that you only got when there was a guarantee of violence.

"I don't know what you think you know, but it's not like that," I whispered, saddened beyond belief. I could piece together what had happened now. Camille must have texted me, and Alec had seen it, and then, his curiosity getting the better of him, he had gone through my old notification and seen all of the conversations with Camille.

And then I got even sadder. She's gorgeous. Alec would have seen the pictures she sent me. I could practically hear his thought process. Already having thought that he wasn't good enough, but happy to no end with me. Then he sees my crazy ex sending all of these things, and it looked like I had been sending them back. Now he thinks the only good thing was a sham, and that it was because he wasn't good enough. And it probably didn't help that Camille is a knockout.

"Alexander. Yes, I used to date Camille. But I ended that long before I joined this team. But she's what you call… clingy," I explained to Alec, the desperation evident in my voice. "I swear to you Alexander, I love you. I would never do that to you," I said, choking up.

This one boy, who I had known for a matter of a month, had somehow become the most important thing in the world to me. And losing him… that scared me more than I thought possible.

"I love you Alexander. Please, believe me," I pleaded with him, very aware of the unabashed tears rolling down my cheeks.

"You love me?" he asked, like he couldn't believe it.

"Yes. More than anything," I told him, being honest.

"I love you too Magnus, to whatever end. But I don't know what to believe," he said, breaking my heart with the despair in his voice.

Then he turned on his heel, his bow long forgotten, and walked out, leaving me crying in the training room.

 **Alec:**

I walked out of the training room, looking for Izzy. She always knew what to do in these situations.

I hadn't lied to Magnus. I loved him. But he also hadn't told me about Camille, which meant he was capable of lying to me, so I wasn't sure who to trust.

I finally found Izzy in her room.

"I need love life advice," I said simply to her.

I think her responding squeal was heard across all five boroughs.

"What do you need? Clothing advice? Kissing advice? Other advice?" she asked, way to excited, wiggling her eyesbrows.

"No, no one of that. I need advice on how to tell if someone is being honest," I said. Then I continued to explain everything that had happened today.

First she said nothing, she just hugged me. Then, "I'm so sorry Alec. I can't believe Malec sank!"

"What?" I asked.

"Your ship name. Magnus plus Alec is Malec. And your ship is sinking, meaning fighting, or breaking up. But I think I have an idea on how to keep this ship afloat," she told me.

"I think you've been spending too much time on Tumblr," was my response.

She waved me off. "No such thing. But…" she trailed off, looking like she was taking my measurements.

"I have a good plan. Well, it could be a terrible plan, but at least it's a plan," she said, shrugging.

"Explain."

So she did. Izzy wanted me to go to the gala, as Magnus, using some of the high tech equipment Simon and Clary had designed to make me look like him. Then, basically, I would see what happened with Camille.

"This is a terrible plan," I noted when she finished.

"But all the fun plans are. Plus, I get to make you play dress up this way," she squealed again, her eyes glinting mischievously.

What had I gotten myself into?

 ** _Ugh. I hate Camille so much. Either way, I am clapping to myself for updating on time again! Till next time! Bye!_**


	13. Stains

**_Hello mate! Well, not mate, but I wish. I'm in serious Fae male withdrawal after finishing the Throne of Glass series and waiting for A Court of Frost and Starlight. *Sigh* Either way, we aren't here to listen to me rant about how Sarah J. Maas is wrecking my heart. So, onto Malec Chapter part 2, even if it's a little (or a lot) late. Enjoy!_**

 **Alec:**

I stepped out of the car, and Izzy waved goodbye to me and drove away before I could change my mind, which I was definitely considering.

People streamed past me into the building, all dressed in their finery. Just like me, I realized.

I felt so out of place without my comfortable sweaters, which I wore so often that there were holes in the elbows. This tuxedo was scratchy and uncomfortable, nothing like my normal clothing.

Although, I wasn't sure if I could even count this as a tuxedo. We had used technology to make me look exactly like Magnus, and to make me sound like him, and I had spent enough time with him to hopefully be able to act like him, but the one thing we couldn't change was how Magnus dressed.

Very, very flamboyantly.

I was wearing a red, suede smoking jacket, with the bowtie being a glittering gold, and the waistcoat was patterned gold and black as well. At least the pants were normal. I had to admit though, as I had looked in the mirror earlier, that I, or Magnus rather, looked really damn good.

I had been ready to go after that, but Izzy had stopped me with a pointed look, telling me that Magnus would have never gone out without makeup on.

I had been ready to jump ship and abandon the plan at that, but I sucked it up and let Izzy line my eyes with koal, and add sparkly gold eyeliner. And I had begrudgingly sat through her painting my nails like Magnus would have done.

And then, to finish the look, she had added the ear cuffs I had grabbed from Magnus' jewelry box, and a few rings from the same place, and viola! I was Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn.

It was super weird.

It would have been weird even if he wasn't my boyfriend, or at least, had been, but it was even weirder now.

I turned, sighing, and walked into the building where the gala was being held, trying my best to seem confident and look fabulous like Magnus undoubtedly would have.

I had almost made it into the building when I heard someone running up next to me, the clickety clack of heels on the pavement ringing behind me.

"Maggy! You came! And you weren't going to wait for me?" the woman whined, and as I turned around, I could see that she was pouting.

It took all of my self control not to gag.

"Well, you weren't out here, and I see no reason to subject my glitter to the elements," I drawled, sounding exactly like Magnus.

"Of course. But I'm here now, so we can go in together," the woman, who was undoubtedly Camille, said smoothly, slipping her arm through mine.

"Shall we?" I asked, raising my eyebrow in the way I had seen Magnus do countless times.

"We shall my dear. We shall," Camille purred, walking elegantly, with an ageless grace, so unlike her previous run.

I followed after her, glad that she was taking the lead. Camille was wearing a midnight blue silk and lace dress, which set off her porcelain skin and green eyes, which glowed like a cats. And with the back of the dress scooping down to show much of her back, and the bottom pooling around her feet, she looked like a river spirit, her ethereal beauty shining.

I could see why Magnus had noticed her. Her blond hair, left down in curls, didn't do much to keep her from being noticed, many male eyes around us roving up and down her body, which the tight, skin fitted dress didn't do much to hide, especially with her… ample features.

I narrowed my eye at each of the gawking men, playing the part of oh so chivalrous Magnus. Camille just smiled and smiled with that feline smugness of hers.

I was already regretting this plan, but I needed answers.

And I seemed to be getting them. Camille was… obviously very pretty, but it was overshadowed by her eyes, which held cunning beyond belief. It was like looking into the eyes of someone too ancient for this world.

She seemed too… cold. Too confident. Like every move she made was calculated and thought out, even the words tht came out of her lying mouth.

It had taken me a few moments to realize it when I had seen her, because she had seemed so insipid, and so sure that I, or Magnus rather, would come.

But she was shocked. I had passed it over as her eyes just catching the streetlights, but no. It was shock that had flickered in them. Which meant... Which meant that Magnus had been telling the truth, and that I was so, so stupid for not believing him, even if I had reason not to.

"Darling, I've just remembered that I have another engagement tonight, and that, oh yes, I still hate you," I said, using Mangus' cat like drawl.

Then, leaving her eyes smoldering with anger, and her face a mask of carefully crafted shock, I turned on my heel for the second time that day and began walking out of the building that I had just escorted that lying witch into.

 **Magnus:**

I exited the cab outside the address that Camille had sent me for the gala, thanking an paying the man.

I straightened out my smoking jacket and velvet pants, and stalked towards the building, ready to shake Camille until she explained everything personally to my Alexander.

Then I saw someone storm out of the building I was heading into. But not someone. No, I was looking at myself, in some truly wonderful clothing, coming right towards me, though I would bet they hadn't noticed me yet.

I broke into a run, slamming into the doppelganger. "Who the hell are you?" I demanded, tackling them to the ground in the nearby alley. And on a whim, I added, "And where did you get those clothes?"

"I… uh… I got them from your closet. Or rather, Izzy did," the imposter stammered, a blush growing on their, or my, face.

I slowly got up off of the fake me. "Explain. Now," I commanded, getting more and more confused.

The stranger reached up to their neck, and pressed their skin. My face flickered, and then morphed into Alexanders. He gave me a half smile. "Maggy!" He shouted, his voice sounding exactly like Camille's, probably from whatever technology he was using to mimic mine.

I still cringed at the sound.

"Please don't. I don't want that name ruining your perfect mouth," I implored him.

He grinned, then swept out a leg to trip me, and, unable to catch myself, I fell on top of him.

Alexander then reached up and grabbed by jacket lapels, bringing my lips down to meet his, kissing me fiercely, a thousand things that couldn't be conveyed through words coming out.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you," he breathed between kisses.

"I'm sorry I gave you a reason not to," I responded, bringing my face down to sweetly kiss him.

"Forgiven. But my rush of boldness has worn off and now we are just making out in an alleyway, so can we please continue this back at the loft?"

"Of course Alec," I said, smiling contently, glad that I had my man back. But what he had said still rang in my ears. You don't get to call me Alexander.

"Alexander," he breathed. "You only get to call me Alexander."

He must have been remembering the same things that I was, and tears slipped down my cheeks.

Then I stood up after one last kiss, and held out my hand to help him up.

"Come on. Lets go home, and get you out of my clothes… and jewelry," I chuckled. I would need a picture of this.

Alexander grabbed my hand, and groaned as I helped him up. "What has Clary been teaching you in that room? That tackle hurt," he complained in jest, the smile never leaving his normally neutral face.

"Baby," I teased, sticking my tounge out at him, and just like that we fell back into our old rhythm, my mistakes forgiven, if not forgotten.

"Come on. We wouldn't want these stains setting," Alexander replied, gesturing at the outfit that indeed had drying mud stains.

"By the Angel. Go, go, go! That stain cannot set!" I shouted, other thoughts fleeing my mind as I broke out into a run for the loft, which was only a few blocks away. The quiet fall of practiced silent feet sounded behind me, trying to catch up.

I would not allow that outfit to be ruined by mud of all things! Not a chance.

I rounded another corner, Alexander falling farther and farther behind, the sound of his breathing as he tried to keep up with the frantic pace getting louder and more ragged.

"Faster, faster! Do you not know what that word means? IT MEANS MORE FAST!" I shouted behind me, waving my hands as I saw the building where the loft was come into view.

Alec grumbled something that was probably better left indiscernible. I flung open the door to the building, racing for the staircase. That jacket will not be ruined! I repeated.

This was exactly the reason I didn't let people wear my clothes, including Alexander, even if it gave me a primal sense of satisfaction to see him in my clothing.

The door opened again behind me as Alexander caught up. I was already up the first flight of stairs out of… fifty. Crap.

I turned around, racing down the staircase. Alexander was not going to make it up fifty flights of stairs in those clothes.

"Elevator!" I gasped out, running out of energy fast.

 **Alec:**

I was breathing heavy now, every breath like breathing in glass shards. Stupid jacket. I thought over and over as I followed Magnus into the elevator, his impatiently tapping feet the only sound that wasn't our ragged intakes of air.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened and I was shoved out the door and into the directly connecting loft, already having the jacket being pulled off of me and thrown into the laundy as we passed by it.

Then, once we made it to our room, I was stripped of my pants too, the bottoms joining their counterpart in the wash. My shoes were next, and Magnus set about cleaning those as I took off the shirt that I was left wearing and threw it into the laundry basket in the corner.

"Crisis averted," Magnus sighed from the bed, putting the shoes back carefully in their box and placing the box in the closet before shedding his own evening wear and replacing it with his ridiculous purple glitter genie pants.

I put on my flannel pants and fell back onto the bed, Magnus crawling in next to me. I wrapped my arms around him, ending the day the way we had started it.

"Goodnight Alexander," Magnus breathed. I shivered at the sound of my name on his lips.

"Goodnight Maggy," I said, smirking in anticipation. Magnus pinched me, hard. I just laughed, closing my eyes and letting the sleep claim me, the day weighing down on my do quickly that I was out within a few moments.

 ** _Whoohooo! I finished! This was super hard for me to write, and I have no idea why. I am going to send them on a mission next time, so please send in suggestions, no matter how far fetched or insane. I'm kind of thirsting for a hard and wacky write. But if you think it's too weird, just pm me, and no one will see it. Till next time! Bye!_**


	14. Raziel

_**What is up my people? *Picture someone saying that in some weird voice* See, it's really nice, because if I ask my real life friends that question, I get super sarcastic answers, such as: gas prices, the sky, or, a personal favorite, Zeus' ego. So, it's nice that most of you don't take it so literally, or at least do not bother to share your responses. Aaaaannd I just rambled. Sorry. Either way, I've been looking at writing troupes a lot lately, so you should definitely begin to see some more of those in this chapter, or the next, but none of the credit goes to me. So, now that that's done, the story must go on! Enjoy!**_

 **Clary** :

I rubbed my hands down my face, taking a deep breath. I used to not mind talking to Simon's father all that much, and now, it had become my least favorite thing. Because talking to Simon's dad means getting a mission, and missions mean bad news, bad weather, and/or, bad people.

Plus, with the threat of my parents breathing down our necks, it was hard to want to leave the loft, and by association, ourselves, undefended.

But, we had a job to do, and even Seb and I's deep, deep pockets couldn't keep this entire operation afloat alone. And either way, we were the Nerd Brigade. No one else could do what we could, and I was not going to hide in my loft like a scared little kindergartener and wait while people were hurt or killed by something that we could have stopped.

Someone padded up behind me, wrapping their arms around my waist. Someone that smelled a lot like Jace, soap and sunshine.

I melted into the arms encasing me, glad for the warmth he was offering. Seriously, he was like a human furnace.

"Rough call?" he asked, worry evident in his voice. I turned to face him, placing my hand on his chest, right over his beating heart, to remind myself that he was here, and he was real, and that this gorgeous man really cared about me.

"They always seem to be," I told him, the strain of leadership weighing down on me.

"So where are we going now, my Queen?" Jace questions me, his normal smirk replaced by a small smile, but a genuine one, as we stood there hugging and rocking around in the main room.

"We, get to go to the bottom of the ocean, my King," I reply, sighing again. He pulled away from me, looking me in the eyes.

"We get to go scuba diving?" he said, way too much joy in his eyes.

"No. We get to go try to tag a few Great White Sharks for the government. Big difference," I explain, rolling my eyes.

"Semantics," my boyfriend replies, waving me off. I chuckle.

"Go tell the team for me you big goof," I order him, reluctantly pulling out of his arms and going to find Magnus to make sure he has our underwater gear ready.

"Magnus! There you are!" I shout down the hall at the glitter bedecked man as he walks out of him and Alec's room. "I need you to help me run some last minute gear checks," I explain when he raises his eyebrows in question.

"Which gear?" he asks in response. So Jace hadn't gotten to him yet.

"The underwater ones," is my answer, and then we were off, down the halls of the loft until we got to the huge room where we had all of our gear set up.

"What's the mission?" he asked from where he was running his checks on the suits.

"Grunt work. We get the honor of tagging some great whites for the government. But the pays good," I tell him, relaying what I had told Jace.

"S-sharks?" He says, or more like squeaks, his voice rising a few octaves as the suit he was working on drops out of his hands.

"Yes? Is there a problem?" I question him, narrowing my eyes.

"No," he waves me off, his face twisting around. "Just that I am terrified of sharks," he finishes.

"Then you can stay here and deal with my parents alone if they come," I say sweetly, plastering a fake smile on my face as I tilt my head, the picture of innocence.

"You know what, I think I'll take my chances with the sharks," he says, his voice still a little higher than usual.

"Smart man," I smirk, walking out the door to make sure all of the others know about the mission, and give them all the details about it, leaving Magnus to finish checking the equipment, and to prep himself for the sharks.

As I rounded the corner of the hallway, I ran straight into a wall of muscle. Looking up, it wasn't Jace though. It was Alec.

"Have you seen Magnus?" He asks me, worry in his eyes.

I grimace. "So Jace told you?"

Alec nodded in response, and I jerked my head in the direction I had come from. "He's checking our gear for the mission."

"Thank you," Alec calls over his shoulder, already halfway down the hall.

I went to say no problem, but then he was gone. Shaking my head, a half smile on my face, I continued down to the main room, meeting up with Simon, Jace, Izzy, Seb, and Jordan.

"Alec just went to help Magnus after hearing about the sharks," Izzy told me as I walked in.

I nodded, "I know. I bumped into him on my way here," I told her. "So. Sharks. It's about as simple as it sounds. We go down with our suits, without a cage, and, using our abilities, we are to tag as many as we can. Senator Lewis gave me a location where they have noted many Great Whites passing through. That's where we're going to start. We get paid $300 for every shark we tag. Go suit up, wheels up in thirty minutes," I order them all, stalking to the room I shared with Seb.

I walked through the doorway, Seb right on my heels. "Where are you going? We need to suit up."

"To do one last thing," I tell him, trying to shoo him away.

He refused to leave, following me as I made for the farthest wall in the room. "Are you freaking kidding? You have another secret room? Am I going to have to find the Dark Web blueprints for this place?" Seb questions me as I push on a section of the wall and it slides away to reveal a simple wooden door.

"Oh hush. I'm entitled to my secrets. If you wont go, then be quiet and follow me," I command him, pushing the door open.

I expected him to follow me and still keep talking, as he usually did when I said things like that to him, but instead he shut up and walked in after me, closing the door behind us.

I pulled a matchbox out of my pocket, and struck a match, lighting up part of the small room that we were in.

I walked around, lighting each of the candles on the altar one by one. Then I lit the top of the incense burner, and blew it out, leaving the scented smoke to float around us.

"What is this place?" Seb whispered behind me.

"I haven't gotten this far on skill. I pray, and one of the Angels up there must listen," I tell him, kneeling on the small mat I had laid out and clasping my hands.

Getting the message, Seb knelt down beside me, mimicking my movements. I closed my eyes, breathing in the incense and sending up silent prayers to whichever Angels were listening, praying for success on this mission, and to give my team, especially Magnus, strength today and tomorrow to do what needs to be done.

And I prayed to the Angel himself for guidance on what to do when my parents wrath comes down upon us.

"Raziel, hear our prayers," I finish out loud, assuming that Seb had been praying as well.

Seb's eyes snapped open, and he fell over from where he was kneeling. "Raziel?" he asked in a strangled voice.

I gave him a strange look. "Yes. What?" I asked him when he continued making strange noises.

"In the army we had to take down a group of people that worshipped the Angel Raziel. They were… extremists, to say the least," he explained, regaining his composure.

"Well, that explains why our mother knew all about him," I muttered. It didn't change anything though, not in what I believed. The Angel had served me well, and he would continue to be the one I prayed to.

Then I blew out the candles, and covered the incense burners with the lids.

"Let's go tag some sharks," I say in a clipped tone, opening the door for him and closing it behind us.

"Lets."

 _ **I know this is a little short, but I'm trying to inch back towards Tuesday, my normal updating time, so I had to cut it a bit short. Please, drop a review, it means a lot. Till next time! Bye!**_


	15. Throw Them To The Sharks

_**Hello one and all! This is hopefully going to be done by Tuesday, and I will be back to my normal updating time, but things do go wrong sometimes, and that could be derailed. So, I will pray to the Angel Raziel that my computer doesn't die at an inopportune time, and I'll get on with the story. Enjoy!**_

 **Seb:**

As we sat on the plane, each of us in our own heads, or doing our own thing, I thought about that room that Clary had hidden away from everyone.

When she had lit the candles, I had been shocked. I had never known my sister to be the occult type.

Then she knelt and began praying in her head. That had made me more surprised. I would think that she would turn to the supernatural before religion.

And then… Raziel. That name. I had lost many brothers in arms on those missions to take out his radical followers, and then to hear my own sister praying to him… I had been shook to my roots.

She wasn't a radical though. She was just praying to the one thing that she thought was listening to her pleas. There was nothing wrong with that. But our mother had taught her about him… and with what she had done to Clary in the past, I wouldn't put it past her to be one of the more rabid followers of the Angel.

I wasn't the praying type either. I had always that if someone was up there, then they either really hated me, or just didn't give two craps about me. But something about that room, with Clary beside me… I had sent up a prayer.

I had prayed to whoever was listening that they would let Clary and the team survive this encounter with our mother. I didn't pray for myself. I didn't care if I didn't walk out of that fight.

It would hurt Clary, but we had been apart before, separated by what seemed like insurmountable obstacles.

Death would just be another. And she would learn to move on.

But if Jace died, or Simon, or Izzy, or Magnus, or Alec, she would be crushed. She wouldn't be able to stop thinking about what she could have done to save them, and if or when she finally realized that the answer to that was nothing, then she would hate the world for making them die.

Especially if it was Jace. I don't know if they had said it before, but you could see how in love they were. It was a shining bond between them, an unbreakable connection.

And if that bond was broken, or cut by the Fates, or God, or the gods, or the Angel, or whoever made the decisions up there, then she would be broken. She would die too, a little bit each day without him, on the inside.

And I would rather leave this earthly plane then have that happen to my baby sister.

"What's on your mind?" Alec asks, plopping down in the seat next to me. We had become fairly good friends, originally bonding over our love for our sisters, and being the overprotective older brothers. Then it had just morphed into enjoying each others company, and now I couldn't imagine having never met him.

Not that I would ever admit it to him. Not that he would make fun of me for it, but I didn't want to say it out loud, because it seemed that whenever I did that, it was ruined.

"My birth-givers," I responded, snapping back to reality.

Alec snorted, the closet to a laugh I usually got out of him. "I like that. I might just take it sometime," he says, wincing, as if realizing that he let something slip.

"Bad blood?" I ask him this time, feeling a bit like Taylor Swift.

"You could say that," he retorts, glaring bitterly at the plane wall, like it did something to him.

I stay silent, urging him to go on, but at the same time letting him know that it's his call and I won't push.

"My parents… were not exactly supportive when I came out," he finally told me, breaking the silence, his voice coming out strained. Like he wanted to sound collected and casual, but it hurt more than he was trying to let on.

Damn. I'm beginning to sound like Clary with all this psychoanalysis and giving off vibes without saying anything stuff.

I put my hand on his shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze, the same thing I have done countless times for Clary, and leave it at that. No one wants pity. So I wouldn't degrade him by giving him any.

Even if I was extremely sorry. Saying so never helped anyone if you weren't the one who caused the pain.

His gratitude was evident in his eyes when he looked at me and said simply, "Thank you."

I nodded, and smiled at him, before Alec got up and went back to wherever he and Magnus had been sitting, continuing to try to soothe his boyfriend's fears.

He better get on it soon, I thought, as the buckle seat belts sign flashed, signaling that our landing was approaching.

 **Jace:**

The plane landed on the runway, a little bumpily, but mostly without problems, and then we began the hard work.

We unloaded our minimal equipment from the plane, and piled into the van that was waiting to take us to the dock where we would set off for the popular Great White zone.

We had only brought our underwater gear suits, our waterproof coms, and the case that held the tags were were to get onto the sharks.

Because the spot we were going to was so populated by the sharks passing through for a meal, we couldn't tag them from the boat. We had to take the poles, and go down, no cage, and swim around to tag them, hopefully without them getting so angry that they decide we looked like a good snack.

Although, I always look good, so I wouldn't blame them.

Alec snorted from next to me in the car. "Hey! No mind reading!" I berated him, punching his shoulder lightly. Alec held up his hands in mock defense.

"Okay, okay. Sorry," Alec apologized in the tone of someone who was not at all sorry.

"Whatever. Don't you have a boyfriend somewhere to stop from having a mental breakdown?" I ask, shooing him off so I can finish prepping the tags.

"Yeah. Don't you have an overworked girlfriend somewhere to de-stress?" Alec retorts.

I smirk at him. Alec starts blushing profusely. "Not like that," he mutters quietly, hoping for me not to hear. Then, louder, he says, "I'm just going to go now," motioning with his thumbs to a spot behind him, and then spinning on his heel, Alec quickly walks away.

I grin, laughing to myself. Alec was right though, about Clary that is. She is being way too overworked lately, between this mission, Jordan, and her parents. And it wouldn't do to have anyone, especially my girlfriend, going down into shark infested waters without her head screwed on properly, even though I doubt that she couldn't take the Great Whites.

I jog over to where Clary is thanking the planes pilot, and giving him a brief message to mail out when he returns to New York, and wrap my arms around her waist from behind her.

I can feel her as she melts into me for the second time that day. "Is everything alright?" Clary asks me, turning in my arms to look me in the eyes, her striking greens meeting my molten golds.

"Everything is perfect baby, running as smoothly as you made sure it would," I respond, taking one arm from her waist to tuck a strand of stray hair behind her ear.

"Good, because this mission needs to go quickly and without complication so we can get back home to the loft as soon as possible. I hate leaving it open to intrusion. My parents could walk in whenever they wanted, steal important information, and waltz right out, and no one would be able to stop them, not from all the way out here," Clary rambles, all of her worries coming out.

It was nice, that she trusted me enough to let me see this vulnerable side to the usually, although less usual now, stoic side of her.

"Hey, hey, hey. Everything will go fine. We'll get this done, and get home to the loft as quickly as possible. And with Izzy, that is very quickly," I say smiling, trying to cheer her up.

Clary gives me a weak smile in return, the bags under her eyes growing more prominent in the sun as she looks up at me. They looked like two black eyes.

Another memory flashed through my eyes, of a different woman I loved, with the same look on her face as she looked at me, her eyes like a raccoons, but truly from a black eye this time.

I shook it off, taking Clary's hand and leading her to the waiting van, where our stuff had finally been loaded in, and opening the door for her.

She climbed in, plopping down in one of the seats in the very back, and I sat down next to her. Seb was driving, and Jordan was next to him in the passenger seat, against both of their wishes. Magnus and Alec sat next to each other behind that, and then behind them and in front of us was Izzy and Simon.

I rolled my eyes at the back of the boys head as Izzy giggled at something he had said. Giggled! Izzy didn't giggle! I don't know how Simon managed to score her, seeing as she was way out of his league, but if it made my sister happy, then I was willing to continue sucking it up and dealing with the rat boy.

"Stop thinking mean things about Simon," Clary whisper chides me.

My eyes are wide as I look at her. "Don't tell me you have another secret power?" I ask, hoping to all hope that she didn't. I might have a lot of explaining to do for some of the things I have thought then, especially when I have nightmares.

Yeah… it might be a little embarrassing to explain to my girlfriend why her boyfriend has nightmares about ducks, the evil things, with fangs as they try to eat my face off.

"I don't need to have mind reading powers to notice you burning holes in the back of my best friends head," she responds, giving me that look like 'duh!'

"Fine, fine. I will stop thinking mean things about Simon," I relented, earning a smile from Clary.

"Good. Now, we need a game plan. I've kind of been winging it so far," Clary confesses. My eyes widen in surprise. So that's why she was so concerned that things wouldn't be going as she wanted them to.

"Damn. That's some pretty good winging it. Okay. So we can't all go down at once, but with the number of sharks we want to tag, the people who go down first can't be down there the entire time. We need shifts," I say to start. Clary nods, like she had already thought of that.

She grimaced then, like she was dreading saying what she was about to say. "We can't go down in couples. Everyone has to be putting themselves completely first. Which means that Simon and Izzy can't be down together, Magnus and Alec can't be down there together, even though it will be hard. And you and I can't go down there together," she finishes.

My first instinct is to shout at her absolutely not. But taking a few steps and thinking about it it makes sense. I would throw myself in front of a shark for Clary, and that wouldn't help either of us.

"That makes it hard though. Because then you can't go down with Seb, and Alec can't go down with Izzy. He would quicker protect her than me, if for no other reason than I can better protect myself," I add on to her thought after a beat.

"Okay. So who can go down together?" My girlfriend questions, and I can see the wheels turning in her head. "One shift could be Simon, Alec, You, and Seb," Clary answers herself after a few moments.

"And the other would be You, Izzy, Magnus, and Jordan, even if I don't like the thought of him going down with you all," I finish for Clary.

"Jordan won't be a problem. Not when the last beating I rained down on him is still fresh in his mind," Clary replies, smirking, a trait that rubbed off on her from me.

"He better not be, because if he is a problem, I will have no qualms about throwing him back and letting the sharks have him," I tell her, only half joking.

Clary smacks me on the shoulder, but it isn't hard, and I can tell she wouldn't really care. There was no love in this team for Jordan.

The van stopped moving then. "We're here!" Seb called from the very front.

"Go time," I whisper to Clary, giving her a sweet kiss before climbing out.

"Go time," she responds, grinning.

 _ **Hope you all enjoyed this! Please drop a review! Till next time! Bye!**_


	16. Plans for Tonight

_**It's me again! And I am back on schedule after almost three weeks of trying, so congratulations to me! This is going to be super short, because I needed it to end the way it did, and there was no way for me to stretch it farther and still meet my deadline. Drop a review when you're done reading, and yeah… Also, I have finally figured out where I want this story to end, and I think that it's going to end around chapter 20. So, a little shorter than I wanted, yes, but I have another story that I have already started to write, and I think you will all like, and I want to start that one. I will probably start posting the chapters for that one soon, maybe even right after I post this chapter, because then by the time this story is over, I might have some kind of a following to fall back on. We'll see. Enjoy!**_

 **Simon** :

As the van stopped moving, I threw open the doors and we all piled out onto the pavement. From that point it was a flurry of movement, what with everyone getting the equipment onto the waiting boat, and Clary and Jace going over the teams that would be going down together.

I was fairly bummed that I wouldn't be able to go down with Isabelle, but I understood why I couldn't. Clary and Jace were right in that regard. I would put Isabelle's safety over mine ten times out of ten.

The worst part about the entire situation, honestly, was that I was part of the first group going down. Which was scary as hell. What if we did something wrong, and the sharks went into a frenzy? Then we ruined the mission for both groups. Or what if we did something wrong and we scared the sharks away? Then we still messed up the mission for everyone.

The whole thing was terrifying. Sharks. Giant Great White Sharks. Giant Great White Sharks that we would be poking with sticks as we tried to tag them. I totally wasn't about to piss myself at the prospect.

Nope. Even with the sarcasm, that's just a complete lie. Asking Isabelle to be my girlfriend wasn't even as scary as this, not that I would ever admit that to her.

I, unlike some of the team, could at least see how important this was. Sharks were at the top of the ocean food web, and we needed to be able to accurately see what was going on with them to keep that ecosystem in check. But none of that meant that I liked the idea of going down in the middle of a huge group of them without a cage to protect me.

Because let's face it: I was useless against them. Everyone had some kind of power. Clary had been practicing with the abilities her damaged nerves gave her, and before we had left she had taken a steaming hot shower, and trapped the heat within her, so if something went wrong with her group she could unleash the heat on the sharks without it coming out beforehand.

But me? Unless one of the sharks had chowed down on a phone, then I couldn't do anything to help. And no one brings their phone in the ocean these days, so there was almost a zero percent chance that one of that sharks would have a phone in their stomachs. I would know. I calculated the odds. Yay math.

Note the sarcasm.

Once we were done with unpacking, and repacking the equipment we board the boat we are taking out, a medium sized fishing vessel.

"Is anyone else about to pee their pants?" Magnus practically squeaked once the boat pushed off. It was so strange to see the man without the confidence that he wore as a second skin.

"You better not. That suit will smell to the high heavens," Isabelle tells him from next to me, putting her hands on her hips.

"Not my largest concern," Magnus retorts, and when I notice that his voice doesn't crack this time, I see what my girlfriend was doing. I didn't have to have Clary's degrees to notice it. She was distracting him from the impending dive by bantering.

I took Isabelle's hand and gave it a squeeze, and she smiled at me before returning to the conversation. I have no idea how I managed to get her to like me, to love me, but by some miracle I had, and there was no way I would ever be letting her go.

Because, as fitting as it was for what we were about to do, when you catch a good one, you're an idiot to set them free.

Great. I was making terrible pun quotes. I only did this when I was super nervous, which meant that I was suppressing emotion. God, I could almost hear the lecture that Clary would be giving me if she were here, because she always noticed these things.

But she wasn't out here with us, making light of the situation as the spray from the sea washed over us. Clary was in the wheelhouse with the captain and Jace, making sure that they got to the correct area of sea.

I turned my gaze from where it had been at the spot of red hair in the wheelhouse window, back to the conversation going on, where Alec and Isabelle were telling the story of some Christmas long thought forgotten.

Someone said something and everyone laughed, so I joined in, but I wasn't really listening. I was just enjoying the moment of relative peace and safety with my new family before we were all dumped into danger.

And as the boat finally slowed down, all that was going through my head was one thought: Please let us all be here for the boat ride back.

 **Valentine** :

"Are we almost ready?" I demand of my wife as she walks through the door.

"Almost," Jocelyn drawls, grinning. This was the woman who I had married, the woman I had admired enough to love.

"Good. Sebastian and your daughter will be back soon enough, and it would be rude not to leave them a gift. After all, it is rare that your child shares a birthday with their sibling," I responded, grinning maliciously.

Jocelyn's eyes darkened, and a flame flickered deep within them. "The abomination is your child as well as mine," she spat back, unhooking er weapons belt from around her waist, and the gun bandoleer from her back and shoulders, throwing the weapons onto our bed. "But yes. The gift will be set out for them tonight. Then, when they receive it, we will arrive to collect them."

"And I trust it will all go smoothly?" I ask Jocelyn, narrowing my eyes as I wait for an answer.

"It will all go smoothly my love," Jocelyn assures me, striding towards me and running her hand along my chest. I snatch her hand and hold it there tightly, but her gaze does not show weakness.

"You should pray to your angel that it does, or no love will save you," I growl, pacing away, wearing a path in the carpet. I had been planning this revenge on that bitch since she was born. She had made a laughing stock of me in public, with her strangeness in front of people. Then she had become a bigger nuisance to Jocelyn when I left, and now her and my son would both pay the price.

"Raziel is forgotten to me. And we do not need prayers my dearest. We have skill," my wife says, smiling like the cheshire cat.

"Very good. Go organize for tonight," I command my wife, and she nods to me, walking off, taking only one dagger from the weapons belt as she passes.

Tonight had better work, or else, things were going to get very, very messy.

 _ **Thank you so much for reading, and I am once again so, so sorry I couldn't make it longer, but I will make up for it next chapter when everything goes down! Heads up on that though, the next chapter will not be out on schedule, because it is hopefully going to be longer, so expect it at most a week late. I know, I know, I apologize in advance. Till next time! Bye!**_


	17. What Goes Boom In The Night

**_I'm back sooner than I thought I would be, but I had forgotten that I had Spring Break, and for me, Spring Break is basically just uninterrupted writing time. Also, this probably won't be longer than normal because I am posting closer to on time (not really), but I write this thing before I write the actual story, so who the hell knows! I also just thought about this, but how did you all like the Valentine P.O.V.? I thought I would try it out and see how everyone liked it. Enjoy!_**

 **Clary** :

Jace and the team that he had gone down with had been down for longer than they were supposed to be under for, and I was beginning to worry. Which was such a strange concept for me because up until Simon and I had created this team, I had never worried for anyone other than Simon, and now I had a family of people to look after.

And half of that family was down where I could not see them, trying to poke Great White Sharks with sharp sticks, without a cage to protect them.

I had just turned to tell the captain to get out the other suits so the rest of us could go down and help them, or, and I shudder at the thought, retrieve their bodies, when there was a cheer from Izzy behind me.

I spun around to see Simon swimming over to the ladder on the side of the boat, which explained Izzy's cheer. I clung to the railing, looking for Jace, my brother, or Alec. There wasn't even a ripple.

On the other side of me, I heard Izzy and Jordan helping Simon up and onto the boat. "Si, where's everyone else?" I ask, my voice wavering with my nerves.

"Seb was right behind me coming up, and Alec and Jace were going after one final giant that Jace had been calling Trevor over the coms," my best friend answered me.

If I hadn't been so worried I might have laughed. Only Jace would name the largest shark that they could find after Neville's toad in Harry Potter. "How big, exactly was this shark?" I inquire of Simon.

"The largest one down there by far. Twice the size of most of them. It was crazy too, not in a frenzy, just… riled up," Simon explained.

"So you saw them going after this huge shark and you and Seb just let them?!" Izzy shouted. After all, it was her brother too that was down there with "Trevor."

"It's not like we could stop them. I can't fight, and Seb didn't want to leave me alone going up through a funnel of sharks," my best friend tried to defend himself.

"That doesn't matter right now. Where's Seb? You said he was right behind you!" I call to my side, not taking my eyes off of the ocean in front of me, scanning for any sign of the Jace or Alec.

"He was. He was also swimming slower though because he had the bag on, remember?" Simon answered.

Of course. There was a heavy bag filled with canisters that contained foul smelling liquid that had to go down, so Seb had carried it. The canisters were a contingency in case blood was released into the water somehow we might be able to keep the Great Whites from going into a feeding frenzy for just long enough for our boys to get to safety.

"There he is!" Magnus, who had been silent this whole time, shouted, pointing off to the side where Seb had, indeed, surfaced, gasping for breath as he ripped off his mask.

"J-jace and Alec. They're still down there," he gasped out as he swam to the ladder, where Jordan helped him get on board the boat, same as he had for Simon.

I turned around, a plan having formed in my head. "Magnus. It's our boyfriend's down there, and we can't risk more than two people going down, so we're going to go help them," I explain to the man who was, for once, devoid of glitter.

He nodded solemnly, no doubt just as concerned for Alec as I was for Jace, although we were both concerned for both of them. I would normally have thought to bring Izzy down too, because it was her brothers down there, but it seemed best that she stayed up here with Simon and Seb, because they weren't looking too hot after their dive, and because I didn't trust Jordan up here with the two of them out of fighting condition.

"Good. Get your tank and mask," I instructed him, doing the same myself. Once the two of us were fully prepared, and had the tagging sticks, I took his hand, gave it a squeeze, and we jumped off the side of the boat and began to swim down to where the sharks should be.

It took us longer than I would have liked, but once we were at the correct depth, we turned on our headlights, even though we barely needed them, and began searching for Alec and Jace.

It wasn't hard to find them, as they both had their headlights on too, and were chasing after a giant shark. And damn, was that shark big. Trevor. Ha. That thing was more like a Jaws. Because we were at the same depth as the two of them, we could use our coms.

"Jace! Alec!" I shouted through the com links.

Their heads swiveled around and they stopped swimming, putting more space between them and the shark as it continued to swim away. "Clare? Magnus? What are you two doing down here?" Jace demanded, looking peeved that their target got away.

"Saving your foolish asses, that's what! Have you checked your air supply?" I shouted, my voice raising even more. It had occurred to me on the way down that their air supplies would he almost depleted.

"Crap!" Alec curse, which was very unlike him, when he realized how low their air was. They should have about a minute of air left, and we would be hard pressed to get them to the surface that quickly.

"Up. Now, where you are!" I order them, beginning to ascend in a diagonal line, so I would meet up with them. Luckily, we weren't far enough down to have to worry about getting Bends by going up too fast, which was good, because we didn't have the time to go slowly.

The idiot boys followed my command, rising as fast as their legs could propel them. I looked towards the surface. There was a good chance, getting better every second, that we would be able to make it.

A frightful two minutes later, we broke the surface, with Alec fighting for consciousness, and Jace blue in the face. Everything had been looking good for a few seconds there, but I hadn't taken into account how gassed Jace and Alec would be after the time they had spent down with the sharks already.

So we had been swimming progressively slower as we went up, Magnus and I slowing down to help them along. When their oxygen ran out, the bubbles from their tanks becoming nonexistent, I knew that we were in trouble, seeing as we were only halfway to the surface, and going slower and slower.

When we were twenty meters from the surface, Alec had began sinking, not able to swim an hold his breath at once. I had waved Jace on, telling him to go up to the surface, while I swam back a little, to help Magnus with dragging Alec up.

We had caught up to Jace, Alec hanging between us, when we were three meters from the surface. With one last heave, the three of us threw Alec up, so he broke the surface, and could breathe again, even though he was barely conscious.

We had pushed Jace up next, getting him up to the surface as fast as possible, because by this point his face was turning purple, and his last bits of breath that he had been holding were gone.

Then, tired and out of energy, Magnus and I had dragged ourselves up to the surface, and had been sucking in air, our masks discarded, when Jordan and Izzy had jumped in the water and helped us all up the ladder and began attending to Alec and Jace, those two idiots.

This had left me thinking. Jordan had been the first one there to help Simon and Seb onto the boat, and then helped the four of us right away. And he had been polite and kind enough since I had beat the hell out of him, which I was beginning to feel bad for.

So maybe… maybe he wasn't so bad. Maybe we had all judged him wrong, based off of his first encounter with us, where he probably had been overly confident after making it onto the team.

I have to talk to him, was my thought as the captain steered the boat back towards shore, our mission done.

 **Jocelyn:**

Grinning maliciously, I banged on the front of the van, alerting the driver to drive us away. As the van lurched into motion, and I pulled the open back doors closed, I caught one last glimpse of the building that held my children's loft, and now, the surprise that I had set for them.

As the doors clicked shut, and I leaned back against the divided, my grin had become a smirk. Those children would regret crossing their parents.

And when the van turned around the next corner, and stopped in an alleyway close to the loft, I sat back and waited for my children to receive their present so I could swoop in and receive mine.

 **Isabelle:**

We were all laughing and joking again as we walked into the lobby of our building, mostly about how stupid Jace and Alec were, and we were talking about having a Pac-Man tournament.

Then one of the men in suits waiting inside came up to Alec, Jace, and I, and began talking. "Mr. Lightwood, Miss. Lightwood, Mr. Herondale, your mother is requesting your presence for dinner immediately. There is a car waiting," He explained in a emotionless tone.

Alec and Jace groaned, and I just barely contained one. "Fine," I said, gesturing for Alec and Jace to follow me. "Bye guys," I bade farewell to our friends, and gave Simon a quick kiss goodbye.

"There is no need for that. Your mother would like to meet the people that her children are spending their time with," the suit continued, giving a fake smile. At this I grinned, and was dragging Simon out the door, Alec and Magnus behind me, and Clary and Jace behind them, when I heard a commotion.

Looking behind me, I saw the suit with his hand on Clary's shoulder. "Not the Morgenstern. My Lady does not trust the Morgenstern's," the man sneers, showing his first sign of being able to express real emotion.

"If Clary isn't going, neither am I, screw what Maryse thinks," Jace growled out.

Clary laid her hand on his shoulder though, calming him as only she could. "She's your mother. And she has good reason to not trust my family, even if I don't know why she knows them. You all go. Seb, Jordan, and I will enjoy thai food and Pac-Man," Clary said, smiling tightly, and I could practically see the wheels in her head turning.

"Are you sure?" Jace, asked softly, being gentle in the way he was only with her.

"I'm sure. Go," she urged him, shoving him forward playfully, even if her face had hardened.

Jace trudged out the door with Alec and Magnus at that. Simon followed at my urging after I whispered to him that I wanted to talk to Clary really quickly.

I walked over to her, and leaned closer. "What did you just figure out?" I asked, having noticed the face she makes when she realizes something.

When she looked up at me, silver lined her eyes. "Whatever happens, keep Jace from doing anything stupid. And… bring Jordan to dinner with you," she said.

I scrunch my eyebrows, not understanding. "Please," Clary begged. I nodded uncertainty, and turned, shooting one last look over my shoulder.

I tugged Jordan's arm, leading him to the door, just in time to see a crying Clary whisper in Seb's ear. Whatever she said, he smiled sadly, and took Clary's hand, and the two of them disappeared into the elevator as we were ushered into the waiting car.

 **Seb:**

As the elevator opened and Clary and I walked hand in hand towards the loft, her whispered words to me rang in my head.

The Lightwood's are weapons makers. Bomb makers. They want me and you here, and they knew our last name.

She had figured it out. Our parents had a hit out on us. They had commissioned a bomb made. And we needed to be the only ones here.

As Clary pulled out her keys and unlocked the door, she said something else to me. "Acheronta Movebo," she whispered.

I nodded, and stepped back from the door, all the way back into the elevator. Raise Hell, she had told me. Which meant that I had to be clear of the Hell that she was going to go through once our parents got their hands on her.

Tears were blurring both of our visions as the elevator doors closed behind me, and I left my sister to whatever our parents had planned. But she had a plan, and that meant that I had hope. Raise Hell.

Oh little sis, how I would for you.

 _ **I hope at least one of you are crying, because I know I am. Please, please, please drop a review, I want to hit 100 on at least one of my stories! Till next time! Bye!**_


	18. Smoke and Mirrors

_**Hello again! I know, I know, I'm sliding back downhill with the updating on time, and I won't give excuses, other than explaining that I have standardized testing this week and it's been taking up a lot of my time, which is why this chapter is much shorter than usual, even though I have had requests for longer chapters. Also, I want to make this chapter end a certain way, so there's that. The next chapter is going to be the longest that I have ever written though, so it is going to take a longer time. But, I'm back now! And this story is coming to a close *cue gross sobbing from me* and I am very sad about it, but I do have Until the Dawn still, and some other little projects I'm working on here and there, including a Harry Potter Au? Maybe. Anyways, on with the story! Enjoy!**_

 **Clary:**

After I thought that Seb would be back down in the lobby, I turned the knob to our door, and pushed it in, bracing for an explosion or gunshots, or something.

Instead there was nothing except a prettily wrapped gift box in the center of the room, on top of my Galaga machine. Alright. So this was my mother's work, since she was the only outsider who knew that Galaga was my favorite arcade game.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped towards the box, still tense as I waited for some hidden trap to spring.

But I got to the box with nothing happening, which only raised my suspicion. I stood in front of the box, thinking about what to do next.

On one hand, if I opened it, something was going to happen to me, and I would probably be in a world of pain at the hands of my parents, or at least, I would be in a world of pain if I could feel it.

But, on the other hand, if I did nothing with the box, Jocelyn and Valentine would get suspicious and probably come either way to take what they thought was both of their children by force. And in the process of doing so, they would see Seb in the lobby and take him as well as me, while I could be the only one taken by pulling that ribbon…

I reached my hand out, and before I would convince myself to stop, I pulled the ribbon away, the red material looking like bloody water as it fell to the ground. Then I lifted up the top of the box, taking another deep breath.

Just as I had expected, a thick smoke came billowing out, but didn't activate the smoke alarm. My head started feeling heavy, and the room began spinning, and then I was on the ground, my thoughts a jumble for the first time in my life

Well played mother, I thought, somehow remembering Jocelyn's calling card, which was the very smoke that was steadily filling up the room around me.

Then the edges of my vision began fading into black, and soon the darkness had covered my vision as I faded into oblivion, not to wake up for hours if my confused mind was to be trusted.

 **Seb:**

Once the elevator spit me out into the lobby, I waited ten minutes, the hand on my watch seeming to move slower than usual as my foot tapped a nervous rhythm on the marbled floor.

Then, when the ten minutes were up I took my phone out, dialing Jace's number. After the third ring, Jace finally picked up, laughter in the background.

It hurt that I had to disrupt that moment of happiness, but my sister was always more important to me, and I had a feeling, more important to the golden boy as well.

"Hey Seb? Is everything alright?" Jace asked, telling someone near him to be quiet.

"Far from man. When we got to the loft we noticed that Jocelyn and Valentine had made their move, a trap for us to spring when we walked in, so Clary forced me to let her play martyr, and she went in as I was sent back down to the lobby. Come back to the hotel now… and bring a gasmask," I added as a quick afterthought to my rambling story, remembering Jocelyn's signature gas bombs.

Then I hung up on the shell shocked man, wringing my hands together and praying to God, to the gods, to Raziel and Lucifer himself, to anyone who would listen to my wishes that my baby sister was returned home safe to me, somehow unscathed after the torments that our parents would put her through until the team and I could save her.

Of course, she wouldn't feel any of the physical pain, which I knew was a big reason that Clary had forced me to let her go, but she wasn't immune to any mental tortures that our parents would no doubt inflict on her.

I could only hope that by the time we managed to get her back from whatever hellhole Jocelyn and Valentine would bring her to, it wasn't too late. Especially since our parents were bound to be pissed that I wasn't with Clary.

My God, just let her be okay.

 **Jace** :

After Seb hung up on me the phone dropped out of my hand as I went into shock. Everything got very slow, and the voices laughing in the background became white noise. In my head, a million images of Clary were flashing through my mind.

Then, like a rubber band snapping back into place, everything sped up, and suddenly the people around me were looking at me with concerned faces and asking me what happened. I ignored them all, and banged on the divider.

"TURN AROUND NOW!" I shouted, my tone brooking no argument.

The car skidded to a halt, just outside New York City, on the way deeper into Upstate New York. The driver maneuvered the car around and began speeding back towards the loft at my commands.

"Turn on the news!" I ordered Simon, who used his technopath abilities to put the news onto the mini television in the car.

The news popped on and like I had feared, the first thing that showed up was a picture of the building that the loft was in with smoke billowing out of the top floor, where the loft was located.

When everyone saw this they began freaking out, and trying to call Seb and Clary, but I knew it wouldn't do them any good. Clary was most likely already taken by her parents, and Seb would be waiting, respecting the last thing his sister had asked of him, and making plans to save her.

As the car continued at breakneck pace towards the loft, one thought was going through my head. I'm coming for you Clary.

 _ **Super short, I know, I warned you. But be on the lookout in tow or so weeks for the final chapter, which is going to be super, super long, I promise! Till next time! Bye!**_


	19. Stopsigns On The Way To Freedom

**_Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and welcome to the final chapter of the Nerd Brigade! So, to begin, I thought I would tell you all again how very, very grateful I am for your kind reviews and that anyone would read something I wrote and like it. It honestly means more than I can put into words, but I can start with thank you! And as promised, this is the longest chapter that I have ever written for any of my stories, coming in at hopefully around 4,000 words, but as I have mentioned, this author's note is written before I begin the story, so hopefully that pans out. So, on to the story! Enjoy!_**

 **Clary:**

I woke up, rage filling my mind before it even knew what was going on. But my nose did. I could smell my mother's perfume, the same scent that would waft off of her while she electrocuted me as a child.

The smell of it brought tears to my eyes, the tears of fear, and pain that I knew was coming. Keep it together Clary, I thought angrily to myself, wishing my hands were free so I could wipe the tears away.

"Well, look who decided to wake up," a familiar voice drawled from behind me.

"How lovely for you Jocelyn," I spat back, more steel in my voice than I felt in my heart.

"Same old bitch I see Clarissa," my mother sneered. "And as always, ruining my plans, even the ones that I had so carefully laid out," she said, sounding bitter about it.

"Oh yeah, I'm so sorry that I didn't give you Seb too," I scoffed, rolling my eyes. I knew exactly what plan she was talking about, but it hadn't been perfect. How stupid did she think we were that we wouldn't figure that something was off?

"No matter. Your father and I wanted you the most. And now we have a good reason to punish you," Jocelyn said, grinning so her teeth showed, making it look more like a snarl.

"If a bad person thinks a reason is good, does that really make it good?" I muse aloud, pretending to have more courage than I really did at the moment. I refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing how afraid I was.

A hand snapped out, cracking across my face as my mother backhanded me, her nails biting into my skin.

I reeled my head back to look at her. Then I spat, my blood mingling with the spit.

She slapped me again. "You're only making this harder on yourself," she leered.

"Don't look so broken up about it," I growled. Then, "plus, by association, harder for me, harder for you," I pointed out, plastering a sickly sweet smile on my face as I internally prayed. Let Seb be coming. Let the others be looking for me. Hear me Raziel.

"Praying to the Angel won't help you now. Not against one of his disciples," Jocelyn taunted, somehow knowing, like always, exactly what I was thinking exactly whenever I was thinking it.

"Screw. You," I breathed out.

This time my mother didn't bother with slapping me. She just grabbed my shoulder and drove her fist upwards into my stomach.

I doubled over, wheezing for breath. Still, I managed to get out, "Not fair. Hitting someone. Chained to a wall."

"Who taught you that life was fair? I know it wasn't me," Jocelyn spat, disgusted, before walking away.

A few feet from the door, Jocelyn turned around and said in a voice dripping honey, "your father will be by to see you soon. You have some catching up to do."

Then the fear struck, wracking through my body until every molecule of my being was laced with pain and terror.

 **Simon:**

We were all frantic. Seb for his sister, who he loved.

Izzy, Alec, and Magnus for the friend they didn't want to lose.

Jace for the girlfriend that he loved with all his heart.

Even Jordan, for the leader of his team.

But none of them were scared for her like I was. Seb that always been loved by Jocelyn and Valentine, to even he didn't really get what she would be going through right now.

But I did. I was Clary's best friend, and I had been for years. I was the one who she had always told about what happened even when she was still going through it. I was the one who would help fix her up and bandage her wounds. I was the one who she showed her scars, knowing that I wouldn't judge her for them. Everyone else, despite what Clary might have told them, still thought the worst thing that could happen to her was dying.

I alone, knew that killing her would be the kindest thing that they could do.

"Simon! Have you gotten anywhere with finding the car that they used to carry her off?" Jace shouted to me from across the room that had been filled with boards and terminals, all dedicated to finding Clary. Him and Seb had taken up leadership of this hunt, so they were both constantly asking for progress reports.

Normally, this would have been really, really annoying, but this was not a normal situation, and none of us were feeling normal emotions, so I simply gave him an answer. "I found the van, but there was no license plate, and because it was dark, there are no defining features to search for," I said in an almost robotic tone. It had been three days since Jocelyn and Valentine had taken Clary, and knowing their past with her, I was beginning to lose hope.

"Try following it on traffic cams then," Seb suggested another area of the room, where he was bent over a list of known associate of his parents, and a map that showed where they all lived.

Izzy was out on the streets with Alec, and they were checking each location as Seb gave it to them, but they were coming up empty from the disappointed sounds that Seb was emitting.

"Got it," I told them, too kind to tell them that I already had done so but it had gotten me nowhere, the van vanishing into an alley and not coming out. And that alley had no doors or places to put a van, but a million other backstreets just wide enough for the van coming off of it, each leading to another busy road.

Of all of us, I knew that Seb was working the hardest, even though we all cared about finding Clary. I mean, the man barely got any sleep.

I knew why though. It was because he felt responsible. He had been beating himself up over it since the incident, and I knew he would continue to until we found Clary.

I had tried telling him that it was Clary's decision to go into the loft, that it was what Clary had wanted, to spare him from their parent's wrath, but it hadn't done anything. In fact, I think bringing up their parents wrath had made things worse as he began to imagine all of the gruesome things that they would be doing to her because she had stopped them from getting him too.

So I just sighed and bent back over my tablet, using my technopathic abilities to trace the van yet again through the streets.

 **Valentine:**

Walking through the steel doorway and into the dimly lit room I grinned at the sight that was in front of me.

Clarissa was chained to the wall by both her feet and her wrists, and there was blood running from a few small cuts on her face, along with a nasty bruise maring her cheek. It was the best sight I had ever seen.

"Well looks who's awake," I sneer at her, crouching down so we were at eye level even with her sitting against the wall.

She looked at me dejectedly, all the fight gone from her eyes. Pathetic. Then a little glimmer of defiance lit in the emerald eyes that were identical to Jocelyns. "It's funny really, because your wife said almost the exact same thing. Except that time, I had actually been asleep," Clarissa said in monotone, yet she still managed to make it sound condescending.

I smiled at her dismal situation. She was chained to a wall, bleeding, bruised, dirty, and most likely very hungry and thirsty since she had been given almost nothing since she had gotten here a few days ago, and she still had the gall to speak to me like that.

"Now I remember why I left you," I say, standing up from my crouched position. I gave her another once over and shook my head. I had always preferred when my victims were at full health when I tortured them, but sadly this was a difficult situation. Clarissa at full health was simply too much of a threat to risk allowing.

"You sound like we were the ones who were married instead of you and Jocelyn," Clarissa observes, trying to sit up further against the cement wall, causing her chains to clank loudly.

"It doesn't matter what I sound like. It only matters what your screams sound like when I drain the life from you," I tell her, grinning maniacally at the thought.

I lifted my foot and saw her flinch away, preparing for a kick, but I brought the foot up to her chin and used it to make her look at me. Yes, that was delicious fear I saw in her eyes. Good.

I could Clarissa's frail chest start rising and falling much quicker as fear made it through the mask that she had tried to put up. Perfect. I would relish that fear when I returned later with my tools.

For now though I just took the foot that was still pushing her chin up and brought it back and then up further so it was in front of her face. "Kiss it," I order her.

Clarissa just gives me an obscene gesture, rattling her chains further. I scowl and bring my foot back before snapping it forwards, dashing her skull against the wall hard enough to knock her out but not kill her.

Although that would have been sweet as well.

 **Alec:**

Izzy and I were out in the streets even as the sun pushed up at the night sky, invading the darkness with it's light. Yes, we were tired, but Izzy was fast enough to be able to check each location we were given quickly, and I could use my mind reading abilities to see if anyone who she found knew anything about Clary's location.

So far, after going through ten of the houses or buildings we had been given, none of Jocelyn or Valentines associates had known anything about their location. Most of them hadn't even known that they were back in the city.

When I had told Seb that over the long distance link that I had established between our minds, there had been such vulgar thoughts in his head that I had dropped the link for a minute. When I had reestablished it, he had explained the outburst.

"Our parents thrive off of people worshipping and following them, so if they didn't tell any of their followers that they were back in the city, it means that they don't plan to stay for very long," Seb had explained. His train of thought had broken at the end, and it sounded like he was trying to keep certain thoughts from coming across the link. Then he had continued, saying, "They might already have skipped town."

I had assured him that if they were still in the city we would find them, and if they weren't then we would keep searching until we found Clary, even if she was in Germany.

Seb had thanked me, and given Izzy and I the last building to check before he ordered us to come back to the loft for the night.

It had been almost four days since Clary had been taken by her parents, and we were all freaking out.

Even Jordan had been helpful, reaching out to all of the contacts that he had in the city from his time in the government to see if they could help.

Most had flat out said no, thinking themselves above something like this, to which he had cursed them off soundly and hung up.

The few that had been willing to help us had done what they could, but to no avail, every lead coming up empty.

If Valentine and Jocelyn weren't such terrible people I might actually be impressed with their skill. Here we were, a team of people literally put together for being the best at practically everything that we do, and we couldn't find them, even if they were in a city as big as New York.

Izzy had just finished clearing out our last location of the night and it had come up empty, not even any people there for me to interrogate, so we began heading back to the loft.

Something had been nagging at me all night though, and I couldn't place my finger on what it was. We were a block away from the loft, passing the alley where Simon had lost the van they had taken Clary away in when something dawned on me.

"Stop!" I shouted to Izzy, who immediately stopped running, and she put me down.

"What?" My sister asked, her eyes scanning my face for anything wrong.

I ignored her though, backing up a few paces to look down the alley.

There. It was right where I remember reading it was. The little spray painted stop sign. Most people had taken it as a joke, but it had always made me wonder. Why would someone paint a stop sign on the inside of an alleyway?

Then something else dawned on me. The reason that Clary had chosen the loft to be the headquarters for the Nerd Brigade.

I ran back to Izzy, who still looked confused. "Loft. Now!" I shout, too excited to really make out a sentence.

That seemed to only deeped her confusion, but Izzy still picked me up and ran us back to the loft.

When we burst through the doorway, Izzy set me down and then I was running, racing through the front room and around a corner before skidding to a stop in the room where the base for Operation: Find Clary was located.

"Map! Map, map, map! Find a map of the street where the van disappeared!" I cheered, practically dancing with happiness. Izzy had come in behind me, and was now giving Seb, Jace, Simon, and Magnus a confused look, which they returned.

"What are you talking about Alexander dear?" Magnus asked, looking almost worried at how happy I was acting.

"The alley where the van with Clary disappeared. I remembered something from it so I checked it out and I was right. There is a stop sign spray painted on the wall a little ways in," I explained, earning even more looks varying from confused to worried.

"What does a stop sign have to so with finding Clary?" Jace demanded, no emotion at all on his face for once. This calmed my happiness a little bit because I knew what that face was.

It was the same what he got when he was trying to keep himself from getting his hopes up, because if he didn't get his hopes up, he couldn't be let down or disappointed. Or at least, that was what he wished to believe.

"Did Clary ever tell any of you why she choose this specific loft as the base of operations for The Nerd Brigade?" I asked the group who had all come closer to hear what was going on.

"No. I just assumed that it had been the most convenient one available," Seb responded, and Jace and the others all nodded their heads in agreement. Except Simon.

"Clary went through dozens of old city archives when she looked for this loft. She never said why though," Simon told the group, his declaration met with many eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"Exactly. She didn't tell anyone why she this place. Which is what Valentine and Jocelyn were banking on. But she told me. Which they weren't," I began explaining. "Clary choose this loft because of the secret spaces around it. She told me that she had no idea why they were there, but the way she explained it, it was like the secret rooms in this loft. No one knew that they were there, because no one looked," I continued. "But somehow Clary found out about them, because the loft was built by the same person who designed the streets around it. Basically, any alley with a spray painted stop sign has a secret complex built completely underneath it. Like an entire building. And considering that they thought no one would know about that complex, and that the van disappeared there, I would take an educated guess that that complex is where we find Clary," I finish, taking a deep breath

Everyone was staring at me.

I blushed, looking down at my feet. Then Jace, always Jace, burst out, "ALEC! YOU'RE A FREAKING GENIUS!"

I blushed again, but grinned. "So what do we do now?" I ask, even though I basically already knew what the answer would be.

And I was right. Jace got deadly serious, a way that I almost never saw him. "Now we find my girlfriend," then he gestured at Seb, "and his baby sister," next he gestured at Simon, "and his best friend," then it was Magnus, Izzy, and I that he pointed to, "and their friend," and finally pointing to Jordan, "and his team leader."

We all nodded solemnly.

And then we began preparing. We had plans to get our friend back. Tonight.

As I walked towards my station, I set an alarm on my watch to go off when we were about to leave. 11:30 p.m. And then we were going to save Clary.

Which gave us a little under three hours to prepare.

 **Clary:**

I don't know how long I have been down here. At least, I was fairly sure that I was underground, judging from the dampness and darkness.

I couldn't trust the cycles of food, because I knew that one of the things Valentine delighted in was giving food in random intervals to confuse his victims into hopelessness.

Jokes on him, I was already hopeless. But they didn't know that. To everyone that I had encountered down here, I was still thrumming with rebellion and confidence.

Idiots.

The door opened, blinding me momentarily with the brightness that spilled in from the room behind it, and a silhouette was outlined against it.

"Hello Stan. Have you come to tell me that my friends have come to rescue me and you are here to release me?" I ask sardonically, adding fake brightness to my voice as I plastered on a sickly sweet smile.

Stan just scowled at me. "We both know that no matter how many times you ask that, it's not going to be true Clary," he replied, setting down my food tray a few feet away and kicking it over to me as he had learned to do after I had tried to attack him the first time he gave me food.

Stan and I had this interesting relationship you see. I asked him the same question with a few variations every time he brought me my food, then he told me no, gave me food, and leaned against the wall for a few minutes to talk, as he was doing now.

Now, Stan and I were not friends. We were not even acquaintances. But he was the nicest of the people my parents had here. I was even contemplating sparing him when my friends freed me, simply because he had been kind enough to talk to me.

I'll never tell him, but Stan was one of the main reasons that I hadn't gone insane. Plus, no one had told him that my father refused to call me Clary, and hated when others did, so I took pleasure from tricking Stan into calling me Clary.

"How's the wife Stan?" I asked as I began eating, grinning at him like my favorite pastime was being chained to a wall in a dark and dirty basement.

"Nonexistent. How's the wall?" Stan shot back with a smirk. Ah, how I enjoyed these pleasant conversations.

"Oh you know, gray, hard, made of stone. Very comfortable," I informed him, making the universal I'm-being-sarcastic face.

"Sounds lovely," Stan grinned, a man who knows that he had the power.

Whatever. Not for long. Alec would find me. I had told him about the secret buildings under the alleys. And that was where I was fairly sure I was. "I could arrange a visit for you," I suggested.

"Haha. You're so funny Clary," Stan replied in a tone that suggested he did not believe that.

Just as he said it though, a commotion broke out outside the room where I was being held captive, the first real signs that there were people other than my parents and Stan in this compound.

"You might want to go check that out," I said sweetly to Stan, who was looking at the door with alarm. Good. It meant that this wasn't planned. Which meant that my friends had most likely found me.

Stan scowled at me one last time before rushing out the door, once again blinding me, so I wasn't able to see what was going on outside.

He came back a few moments later with a terrified look on his face. Cocking my head to the side, and grinning for real this time. "Have you come to tell me that my friends are here to rescue me and that you have come to release me?" I ask, repeating my question from mere minutes ago.

Stan gulped, and nodded, making his way over to me like a man possessed.

Once I was freed from my chains, and the wall, I stretched like a cat and turned back to Stan. "Go. My friends won't spare you. But I will. Run now. Don't look back. Leave the country. This is my thanks for you talking to me and keeping me from going insane. But if I ever hear about you getting involved in any type of crime ever again, including Jaywalking, I will hunt you down myself and cut your freaking head off," I tell him before stalking for the door.

But before I could get there, it bursts open, and Jace walks in. "Clary," he says, my name a prayer on his lips, and his voice breaking as he takes in my condition, which is better than I thought it would be after all of this time here, but still pretty bad.

"Jace," I say, equally as reverent, as my eyes drink in every detail of him.

"Are you okay?" he asks, rushing forward to envelop me in a tender and yet crushing hug, as if he couldn't believe that I was here, and I was safe.

I looked behind me a little bit, to see that Stan had gotten away before Jace had appeared. "I am now."

 _ **Oh my gods. I finished! This finale took me longer than I had planned for it to, but I am finally done! I really really hope you all liked this story, I put a lot of effort into it for you all. Thank you so much for reading and being awesome fans. I can't thank you enough. Please leave a review for me if you liked my story! Right now the other story for The Mortal Instruments that I have out is Until The Dawn, so please check that out, it's fairly new, and mature. I don't know what's next after that, but hopefully something! Again thanks for reading! And now, as this is the final chapter, I can't say Till next time for this story, as is my tradition, but hopefully I'll see all of your usernames over at my other story. So, in that sense… Till next time! Bye!**_


	20. Shameless Shoutout

Hey everyone! I'm sorry this is not a chapter, but it is something worth reading and looking into! My friend TheForsakenCourier, is writing a story based off a video game, and I personally don't play many video games but the content is still really good, and he only has six views on his latest chapter, I feel bad, so can you all help him out and check out his story? We all know how important it is to give new writers a real shot on this site! Thank you all, and go check him out, see you for a now decided Christmas Special in December!


End file.
